


Diamondback and Demons

by commanderlurker (honeybee592)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybee592/pseuds/commanderlurker
Summary: N7 badass Commander James Vega and his crew are back at it. They're sent to investigate another instance of a rift but get pulled through and end up--well, they're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure.This is a sequel toPoker and Demons. Familiarity with that story will help with some of the references in this one.





	Diamondback and Demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [worstcommander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstcommander/gifts).



> Worstie, this is the crackship that keeps on giving. I hope you enjoy :) (and please forgive the plot holes)

Same shit, different day, no? James disconnects from the QEC and wanders to the cockpit. Varis sits there, humming to himself as he keys in course corrections.

“Stick this in,” James says, pinging him new coordinates.

“Far Rim? There’s nothing there. Literally nothing.”

“Apparently not any more.” James claps Varis on the shoulder and rounds up the rest of the crew.

*

“Blips, sir?” Barry asks. “Again?”

“They’re called rifts,” Hasani says.

“Just got word from Hackett.” James pulls up the galaxy map and points to the Far Rim system. “One of them here. Another three in the Titan Nebula.” Hackett’s got patrols going out to the three there but he’s sending us to the Far Rim, way past Ma-at. It’s dead space. No need for Alliance to go in there so we’re going covert.”

“Orders?” Hasani asks.

“Keep an eye on it and catch anything that comes through.”

The crew all look at each other. Here we go again, James thinks.

*

Yep, just like last time. Except this rift’s not hovering above an asteroid. It’s just hanging in empty space. All green and spiky and…demony.

“So we’re just meant to watch it?” Barry asks. He’s leaning against a porthole, looking out.

“Uh huh.” James looks out of the porthole next to Barry.

“No offense, sir, but this is a shit mission.”

James snorts.

Hasani patches through. “Got an energy spike, Commander.”

“Varis, take us further out,” James orders.

“Aye, sir.”

The floor lurches under James. Jeez, Varis, little heavy there? Then the ship lists and gravity shifts from the floor to the starboard wall. Barry and James press against their portholes as shit starts rolling and crashing behind them.

“Varis?” James calls.

“I’m trying, sir, but she’s pulling against me.”

“Xiong, Hasani?”

“Fucking drive core’s out,” Xiong yells over her comm. “Engineering’s gone dark.”

“It’s pulling us in,” Hasani says over hers.

“Varis, evasive maneuvers.” James’ gotta get to the armory but the gravity’s all over the place.

Varis replies in the negative. “Can’t do shit, sir.”

James and Barry stumble and float their way to the armory to suit up, grabbing Hasani on the way. The lockers open easy enough but all their gear floats out. James’ just shimmied into his undersuit when gravity returns the right way up. They collapse in a heap on the floor.

“Sitrep,” he calls.

Silence for three seconds, then Varis over the comms. “Uh, you might want to come see this, Commander. In the mess.”

“Lock it down and keep out.” Better not be another fucking demon. James doesn’t have time to patch into the vid links. Just keeps snapping his heavy armor together. Loads up on weaponry, too. Not that shooting shit’s an option inside his own ship but nothing says “prepared” like frag grenades.

Barry and Hasani finish suiting up seconds after James and the three run to the mess. Varis and Xiong are already there, standing at the closed doorway.

“What’s in there, Varis?” James asks.

Varis slaps the door control and James swears to himself. Little warning might’ve been nice, thanks. Mess’s open now and--

“Holy fuck.” A rift-- _the_ rift--fills the mess, floor to ceiling.

“It’s outside, too. Like, the ship has speared it,” Varis says.

“What do we do, Commander?” Barry asks.

James is about to say, _No fucking idea_ , when gravity lurches again and all five of them tip and stumble straight toward the rift. James grabs the table leg but Xiong smashes into him. He yelps and lets go and then they both careen through the rift.

He lands with a thud, rolling onto his belly but keeping his head down. Hasani yells in his ear piece but that’s nothing on the reverberating scream coming from right above him. He twists out the way, rolling again, just in time to see a gangrenous green claw hit the ground where he'd just been. He grabs his pistol and unloads into the thing. It shrieks worse than any banshee but falls to the ground, Hasani by its side in a second but it’s dissolved and fizzled right out of existence already.

“What the--” priorities, Vega. “ _Vespa_ , status.”

“Hasani.”

“Xiong.”

“Varis.”

James waits. One more. Come on--

“Barry, here.”

Thank fuck. All five of them. They crawl, walk, crouch towards James, sitting with him as he sits up too. Barry and Hasani still have their helmets on. Xiong and Varis haven’t gone blue so the atmo must be all right.

“What the fuck happened, Commander?” Barry asks, omni up.

Xiong looks around. “Well, we sure as shit ain't in Kansas anymore.”

James looks around too. Definitely not in any Kansas, metaphorical or otherwise. Worse, he has an awful feeling that they're not even in the Milky Way.

Hasani’s been toeing the dirt. Now she picks up whatever had caught her interest. Rags, by the look of it. “You know what this is?” Hard to gauge her expression through the helmet but her tone is pissed off incredulity. “It's that same shit that demon left behind on the _Vespa_.” Yeah, James remembers that one. He'd hit it with a fire extinguisher.

“Does that mean--?” Varis whirls his head skyward. James follows. Daylight and two almost full moons. Varis shakes his head and looks at his omni, muttering about waiting till nightfall to know for sure.

“Uh, Commander? It's a blip.” Barry points at the glowing green tear in the air. It’s about twenty meters away and if there's a way for blips to look angry, then this one is pissed.

“Guys, let's run.” James launches to his feet and starts sprinting towards a forest. No need to check if Barry and Hasani are following but Xiong and Varis aren't ground crew so no HUD peripherals for them. They're there though, as James glances over his shoulder. Varis waving his hands around his head like he's being chased by bees, Xiong with all the form of a heavyweight boxer.

They vault a rickety wooden fence and then head a few meters into a forest. By the time they’ve stopped, Varis is doubled over and panting and Xiong’s not broken a sweat. Just raised breathing from Barry and Hasani, both in power armor. James looks through the trees. The blip-rift thing isn't as angry looking any more. No demons that he can see. His eyes focus on the surrounding countryside. The fence he'd jumped, a field. Not well looked after but the old plough grooves are there, splashes of green weeds between stubbly brown storks. He takes of his helmet. Hasani does the same but Barry keeps his on.

“Uh, you got any idea where we are, Commander?” Barry asks.

“Thedas,” James and Hasani says in unison.

“Thedas.” Barry repeats it with a note of wonder. “So we came through the rift?” He’s giving James that look that says he's asking for an authority figure to tell him that everything's gonna be okay. Guess who that authority figure is.

James claps his hands and catches everyone's attention. “Thoughts?” Then when everyone starts talking at once he whistles. “Varis. What’s our location?”

Varis has his omni up, tapping away, muttering as he looks up again. Hasani’s practically bouncing on her toes but James motions for her to stay quiet. “Definitely out of any comm range, sir. No GPS of any kind, no QEC, no short-hop comms. No radio. We’re alone.”

James nods. “Hasani. Got anything to add?”

“Not about our galactic location, sir. North’s that way though.” She points. A second later all their omnis ping. “Compass directions for you. Atmo’s fine--similar to Earth. We’ve got nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide in safe ratios. Looks like wheat in that field. I’ll need some time before I can run tests.”

“Chakrabarti?”

Barry finally unclips his helmet. “Got a few scratches on my armor.”

“About our situation,” James prompts.

Barry shrugs. “No doubting it, Commander. Just like Xiong said, this isn’t Kansas. We’re in Thedas.”

James raises his eyebrow at Xiong. She rolls her eyes. “Looks like we’re in a pretty nice forest. Field out there…little house. Fuck sir, you’re asking the mechanic for directions. I don’t know where the fuck we are, I just make sure the bird flies.”

James squints through the trees. Huh, there _is_ a house. Okay. Next issue: food.

Hasani’s got a couple of bars amongst her ammo and engineering detritus. Xiong has half a stick of gum. Varis’ got nothing. They hit the payload with Barry. Trust a biotic to load his pockets with MREs instead of ammo. James, he’s got almost as much as Barry. Little lesson he picked up from Shepard. So. They’ve got enough for three days. Five if they stretch it. More if Hasani figures out what’s edible out here. Water? Just what’s in the ground crew’s armor caches. Will be able to run whatever they can find through their suits’ decon units.

Fire power and ammo’s next. Hasani’s got a pistol and drones. Barry’s got a pistol and biotics. James’ carrying two pistols, a shotgun, an assault rifle and five grenades.

“What?” he asks.

Barry shrugs. “Just seems like you’re compensating for something, sir. No offense.”

He’s not going to get drawn into this biotics versus muscle argument again. He chucks Xiong one of his pistols since all she’s got is a spanner. Varis gets the assault rifle, much to the others’ concern. James isn’t worried. He’s seen Varis’ record, knows that he can do more than just fly a ship.

So. Food and defense. Good enough start.

“What do we do now, Commander?” Barry’s all lost lamb again. Shit, that boy’s got some growing up to do if he’s gonna make it to N7.

Varis gets in before James does. “Simple. We jump back through, just like Bull did.”

Something in James’ chest pulls at the mention of Bull. He puts him out of his mind for the moment and focuses on the suggestion.

“Not with all them demons going for their constitutional.” Xiong nods back. Shit. Demons. When had they all turned up?

Varis collapses, snapping twigs as he goes, landing flat on the ground. He hasn’t fainted though. Just panicked. They all crouch, quiet, and watch. They haven’t been seen.

“You gonna throw a grenade?” Xiong whispers. She looks like she’d like to do the throwing.

James shakes his head. He signals them to follow, and he crouch-crawls them further west, one whole click. They pop into a glade, all grassy, with meadow flowers. Looks like there should be pixies dancing around mushroom circles.

No pixies but there is a bear. It growls and gets ready to charge.

Barry’s got it in stasis before James can get a hand on his pistol. “You gonna shoot it, sir?”

“Be good eating,” Xiong says.

“We’re not shooting the fucking bear,” James says. “Stun it and set it…over there somewhere. Away. Far away.” Barry does as he’s told but doesn’t look happy about it. “Hasani, anything else here we should worry about?”

Hasani scans the glade and forest edge, circling slow. “A few heat signatures. Nothing as big as that bear though. No rifts or demons. Want me to put a perimeter checkup?”

James nods, yeah, and five drones materialize out of Hasani’s omni.

Sun’s low in the sky now, skirting the glade in shadow. Nothing for it but to camp the night and deal with tomorrow when it comes. They eat an MRE each, chewing with grim determination, losing as much saliva as they’re able to generate. No fire. Can’t risk detection. Mood’s grim so James gets a poker game going. Not the same playing on their omnis but after a few rounds they’re getting into the swing of it. They all know it’s a cover, a distraction for what’s actually happening, but they all know that forgetting about the present is necessary, sometimes.

“Just like N1,” Barry says. James has to agree on that.

James takes first watch. He wanders the perimeter, shivering even though his suit keeps him at an ideal temp. How long will that last without access to power? Not cold, anyway. Fifteen degrees C. He looks up at the stars, just like Varis had been doing all night. Unfamiliar constellations. All stars in a galaxy James knows nothing about. And how terrifying is that? That they could just fall into another galaxy? The chances of landing on a Goldilocks planet isn’t lost on him either. They’ve got to get home though. He’s got to get them home. Just got to get back through that rift. A memory of Bull flashes through James’ mind. He blinks it away and stares into the dark.

*

Sunlight filters through the trees. Everyone looks like shit. James has a plan though. He lays it out over breakfast. Everyone looks at him like he’s gone cuckoo.

“I lost you at ‘hold hands and jump’,” Barry says.

“Yeah, I love you guys but I don’t want to hold _your_ hand, Barry.” Xiong pokes her tongue out. _Por Dios_ , if someone mentions catching cooties then they’re gonna be left behind.

James rolls his eyes. “I wanna make sure we _all_ get back so we’re gonna hold each other's hands like we’re five years old and learning to cross the road and we’re gonna jump through. Together.”

Xiong mutters something about clicking her heels and wishing. James ignores her. “Got any other ideas?” he asks. Barry mutters. Hasani’s on her omni, brows furrowed. Varis keeps putting his finger in his mouth and making popping noises. “We can’t keep it open. We don’t know how. So we get in, clear out the crap, and jump. Okay?”

“What’s our ETD?” Xiong asks, getting up. “I gotta take a shit.”

It’s the tension-breaker they need. Nothing like shitting in the woods to bring the crew together. James waves her away. Hasani sends a drone with Xiong. Turns out, everyone gets their own personal escort for their morning ablutions. Not the weirdest thing that’s happened to James, and that’s saying something.

*

They retrace their steps. Or, they think they do. The forest edge sneaks up on James and suddenly he’s on a road. Not paved, just dirt, but it’s a road all right.

“Agh!”

James whirls. Humans. Seven humans, uniformed. Three with crossbows pointing right James and his crew. Two with swords drawn. Two with their hands on…walking sticks?

Barry’s got a shield up in half a second, over the crew, but it fizzes away when one of the stick-carriers hits it with a fuckin’ bolt of lightning. Barry grunts and kneels, rubbing the back of his neck.

Then Hasani, Xiong, Varis and James have their weapons out, pointing at the humans.

“Don’t shoot _anything_ ,” James orders.

The leader of the humans shouts something and from the way the crossbow wielders move, he’s told them to take it easy, too. He puts his own sword away and steps forward, arms out.

James does the same, much to the consternation of Barry. “Weapons away, guys.”

Varis hasn’t got anywhere to clip his rifle so up it goes, over his head. From the bulge in Xiong’s pants, James can guess where she’s stored hers.

The man shouts again. More than one syllable. Words. A whole sentence. Nothing any of their translators are picking up but you don’t need to understand the words to understand the message. James gives his best disarming smile and says the first thing that comes into his head.

“Graava.” The name Bull used to introduce himself back in the Milky Way. “Graava,” he says again, adding another few that he remembers Bull teaching him.

One of the soldiers lowers his crossbow and asks his captain something. They look at James. James nods and repeats the name, adding finger horns on the side of his head. The soldiers smile now. One of them laughs.

“Graava!” she says and…thrusts? Uh…okay. She dissolves into laughter.

It’s done the trick though. The leader puts his hands on his hips and looks James in the eye. “ _Something something_ Graava _something_?” At least, it sounds like a question.

James nods. “Graava. Yeah! You know him? Big guy with horns?”

The captain confers with his unit, scratching his head and shrugging. He turns back to James and talks again. Backs up his words with his sword.

“I think they want us to follow them,” Hasani says.

“Yeah, I got that.” A crossbow--Dios mio, it better be unloaded--nudges James in the back.

They start walking. At least they’re allowed to keep their weapons. James wouldn’t’ve been so lenient.

*

They walk all morning. Four hours non-stop along a road winding through untended fields and wildling evergreens. Kinda uncanny valley. The trees look like fir but something’s off. The crops that are growing look like some of the weirder ones from Palavan. The few animals they pass seem like hybrids of Milky Way species. There’s this massive docile buffalo-mammoth thing, covered in thick brown fur. Got horns, too. No more bears. Signs of habitation, farming, agriculture. But this isn’t land that’s been tilled recently. Biggest is the paved road they joined about an hour in. Wide enough for carts to pass on either side. Kinda reminds James of vids about ancient Rome. A few houses dotted here and there. Thatch roofs. Only one has smoke coming out the chimney. All the rest look derelict with windows and doors smashed in, scorch marks. This is a land ravaged by war, no doubt.

And every step they take along this road is a step further away from the rift and home. James has already considered killing their captors and making a break but honestly, he’s kinda curious to see what happens. They know Bull, or at least that’s what it seems. If they hadn’t known him? Well, first contact might’ve been a little more violent.

The soldiers call into an outpost. Just a bunch of tents and an awning, two or three tables strewn with camping and fighting shit. Looks similar enough to outposts James has been to before that he kinda feels at home. Only difference is the tech. Where they have tents, the Milky Way would have prefabs. Shuttles instead of horses. Antenna instead of flags. And…were those ravens in a birdcage?

The crew’s told to sit so that’s what they do, planting their asses on a couple of the logs around the fire pit. The two lots of soldiers gesture to the crew as they talk. Lots of shrugging and stares. James catches “Graava” a couple of times and the incredulity that follows. The captain and the officer take one long look at the crew before a kettle over the fire whistles, startling them from their assessment. On cue, James’ stomach rumbles. Someone clatters a load of plates together. Lunch is on.

“I’m starving,” Barry whispers.

“Me too. But we don’t know what this food is. Might not end well for us,” James says.

Varis leans forward. “They’re not gonna be dextro, are they?”

James shrugs. “Until Hasani’s had a chance to analyze this stuff, we don’t eat anything.”

Barry and Xiong groan.

“Can’t go wrong with water, surely?” Xiong asks.

James concedes and gestures towards the kettle. He gives up pointing and just straight up talks English and he manages to get a cup of boiling water poured for him. Hasani scans it and for a moment it looks like they’ll have swords at their necks again. Curiosity wins out though.

“H2O. Mostly. Trace calcium, magnesium, some other minerals. Nothing that’s going to make us sick.” Well, that’s one thing in their favor. “Food will require me to fab a lab. Wish I had more than just my omnitool...”

More gestures and bowls are handed out. Spoons too. Simple metal.

Hot water on the MRE’s is practically Christmas dinner. At least until they catch what the soldiers are eating. Meat of some sort. Fruit. Cheese. James’ mouth waters and he can’t help but stare as he spoons reconstituted brown slop into his mouth.

Varis manages to acquire paper and pencil after scratching with a stick in the dirt. He’s making a map, he says, so they can get back to the rift when they're able. Smart man.

They push on after lunch, walk all afternoon and finally arrive at another outpost on dusk. More MREs and hot water to wash it down.

A couple of the soldiers break out bottles and start filling jugs. Holy hell the fermented yeast smell hits him and James’ never wanted a drink more in his life. The soldier passes a couple their way, Xiong and Barry grabbing them like greedy raccoons.

“Hey, hey,” James says, reaching out. “No drinking, huh?”

“You fuckin’ serious, Commander?” Xiong slams her jug down on the ground. She glares at James and James glares back. He sits up straight and leans forward.

“I am fucking serious, lieutenant. We’re in another fucking plane of existence and while I know that this fucked up chain of events calls for a fucking drink, you will not drink until we have established what the fuck is in that fucking jug.” He doesn’t yell, doesn’t stand up. Just sits there, voice firm, annunciating each _fuck_ so Xiong--and the others--know exactly who is in charge.

Xiong’s jaw works and she looks away, chagrined. Barry set his jug down quietly halfway through James’ rant and now stares at the fire. The soldier stand there too, not sure where to look. He retracts the jug he had offered to Hasani and sips from it himself.

“Hasani, I’m fucking dying for a drink. Think you can test this?” James asks.

“I’ll need to fab some components,” she replies.

“Just do it, please.”

She uses a small amount of omnigel to knock up a makeshift lab. The outpost soldiers sit around, gasping and talking to each other as Hasani’s omnitool lights up and starts extruding bits of equipment. Some of them aren’t muttering in wonder though. Suspicion and menace more like. Maybe showing off the fancy tech to the luddites wasn’t the smartest move. But soon enough Hasani’s got a drop of beer in a dish and her omni’s spitting out all sorts of shit.

“Amylopectin and amylose polymers, lot of glucose.”

Xiong sighs. “For fucks sake Hasani, can we drink it or not?”

Hasani glares at Xiong. “It’s straight up beer,” she says. She bites out the words. James isn’t gonna say anything. They’re both adults. They can sort out their own shit. In the meantime? Sweet, sweet beer.

*

They walk for a week. James, Hasani and Barry in their power armor, sweating up a storm. James’ almost embarrassed to take his off at the end of the day but everyone else--the Thedas soldiers, too--fuckin’ stink as well. Varis’ got killer blisters and they’re out of medigel so he suffers. Doesn’t complain too much though. Just hisses whenever he takes his boots off. A soldier at one of the camps notices and offers a bandage. She wraps it around Varis’ feet and in the morning, they’re completely healed and he walks with a pep in his step that day. They stock up on those.

Hasani puts food samples through her lab and deems most of it safe to eat. She also whips up a quick and dirty program to keep track of both Milky Way standard time and their current location. A full day-night cycle is almost the same as Earth, little longer. She supplements Varis’ maps with altimeter readings. Not objective since they couldn’t calibrate at sea level and they got no known altitude to go off. Still, it’s clear they’re heading up. Not that they needed an altimeter to tell them that: by the end of day three they’re surrounded by snow and mountains and are getting snug in their tents at night.

Day six rolls around and the unit they’re travelling with are animated, excited. They got that second-wind to them that makes James think they’re almost at their destination. He can’t remember where Bull said he lived now. Just that he wasn’t from round these parts. Makes sense. The only species the crew have met have been humans and elves. Real fucking elves with pointy ears. No one with horns like Bull.

Sure enough, by midday, they spy their destination. A castle built on top of a mountain. Like, right on top so it looks like it’s growing out of it. Holy hell.

“It’s like something out of Disney,” Hasani says.

They’re prodded down a winding path and James watches as the castle dips in and out of view. A real long bridge--real high up--links the castle to the mountain they're on. The unit stop at the guard house and the captain says something to another captain. Someone’s sent across the bridge, sprinting for it.

“This can’t be real,” Xiong says.

The runner comes back and the crew are lead onto the bridge.

“This bridge!” Xiong says. “Engineering genius! Can’t say I ever seen an arch bridge like this before. The forces it must be under--the weight of the stone alone! We must be a good three hundred meters above the ravine. How does thing actually work? Shit, man, these guys know their stuff.”

James can’t say he knows much about bridges but he’s just glad this one doesn’t look like it’s gonna collapse any time soon.

They stop at the gate house at the other end and would you look at that. The guy waiting for them looks like a king.

He’s got a full-on maroon and brown fur cloak (what the fuck kind of animal is that color?), gleaming breastplate. A sword in a scabbard hangs from his waist. He’s fierce and grumpy, suspicious. Yeah, stick a crown on him and he’d be a fairytale king. He inspects the group, appraising, judging each of them until his eyes fall on James. Leader to leader. James takes a step forward--just one, hands out and empty--and introduces himself and the crew, knowing he won’t be understood but he’s gotta start somewhere. He points to each of his crew and says their names, ends with his index finger against his chest. “Vega.” He points to King Blondie and shrugs. “You?”

King Blondie doesn’t say a word. His frown just gets deeper, fingers readjusting on his pommel. A trickle of sweat beads down James’ side despite all the snow. His face heats up. He tries talking again but this time he does his Bull impression. Fuck, he feels like an idiot. At least his crew keep their mouths shut.

The _Graava_ and the finger horns do the trick. King Blondie raises a skeptical eyebrow, cocks his head. Crucially, his fingers relax on his pommel. He mutters something to the runner and the runner nods and dashes off inside the keep. Then they’re just…standing there, staring at each other. King Blondie shifts on his feet, clears his throat, looks away--just for a second. James can’t help but grin at their mutual awkwardness. His crew shuffle behind him. King Blondie spends these few minutes glancing between James and the keep behind him. James spends it watching King Blondie and taking in as much as he can. The weather’s weird. All this snow--his altimeter reads three thousand meters from where they started near the rift--and there’s even higher mountains around them but the air’s not cold.

Something catches King Blondie’s eye. James follows where he’s looking, spots the runner and, right behind him, Bull. It’s really him. The horns, the eyepatch, those massive broad shoulders. He looks just like he did in the Milky Way, right down to the red and green striped trousers. James is so relieved he could cry.

Bull’s got a huge mug in one hand and he looks annoyed. Relief turns to panic. What if Bull doesn’t remember him? Or they got the wrong horny cow man? Bull looks at James. His scowl turns into a grin. His grin turns into a laugh. He hands his jug to the runner, spilling most of it onto the poor elf. James finds himself pulled into a massive hug, right off his feet. Bull smells like beer and smoke and he still laughs. He sets James down and does the same to Barry, Xiong and Varis. Hasani puts her hand up, says no thanks so Bull claps her on the shoulder instead. He steps back, still grinning, puts his hands on his hips.

“Shit. Fancy seeing you here,” Bull says.

James’ stomach flips. That voice shouldn’t feel so familiar. “You got no idea how glad we are to see you, man.” James laughs. “We fell through one of those fuckin’ rifts--they’re all over the Milky Way--and there were demons and bears and then these soldiers found us but I managed to--”

“Hey hey, slow down.” Bull puts his hands up. “You guys look like you’ve been through a lot. You want to get cleaned up before we swap war stories? Get some food into you?”

A chorus of _yes please_ and _fuck yes_ from the crew. A quick exchange between Bull and King Blondie--who looks completely dumbfounded and not nearly as intimidating anymore. Then Bull slings his arm around James’ shoulder, retrieves his jug from the runner and leads the group into the keep.

*

Baths before food, Bull says. At least he’s polite enough not to say just how bad they stink. The whole place smells, James realizes. Real strong. Straw and smoke, hints of rotting meat, rotting vegetation. People, feet, sweat. Baking bread, too. All intermingling to assault James’ nostrils. The place is just as crowded as the lower wards on the Citadel but even they don't smell like this. Bull leads them into the castle, all stone walls and sconces lighting the way, down stairs. He chats. Can’t believe his luck, says he was just thinking about James and the crew the other night. “Caught myself looking at the stars and wondering what you guys were up to.” He grunts a little laugh. “Never would’ve thought you’d be here, dragging your asses through the Hinterlands.” Neither did James.

Bull opens an arched wooden door. They all step in and find themselves in a cavern--rough-hewn walls, no windows, lit by more sconces and little blue-green fairies or some shit flying around the ceiling. Through the steam, pools, all terraced and water gusting out of the stone at regular intervals. Xiong whistles. Bull shoos out the few people bathing and ushers the crew in properly.

“Clean yourselves up. Take your time. Water’s hottest at that end, coolest at this end. Drinking water here, towels here. You boys wanting a shave might have to wait for the barber unless you know how to use a single blade razor. Anyway, I’ll be outside,” Bull says. He starts to move, then pauses. “Make yourselves at home, seriously. We take all sorts here. You’re probably the weirdest we’ve got but that’s not saying much.” He smiles so fondly at James that once again, James is almost driven to tears. Then Bull closes the door.

The crew look at each other, look around. They’re wild, that’s for sure. That talk of shaving made James’ face itch. Barry’s got a full on beard coming through. Didn’t know he had it in him. Varis’ though, his facial hair’s the kind you get on a teenager, all patchy and wiry. As for the women, well. With some clippers, Xiong’s buzz could almost be clipped down to match James’ fauxhawk. Hasani takes her hair tie out only her hair doesn’t cascade in flowing rivers of black. It kinda just…clumps.

“Looks like we lucked out, huh?” James says. He sets his weapons down and starts stripping, dumping his armor on the floor.

“What about getting--” Varis starts.

“You heard what Bull said. Let’s get cleaned up first, get some food into us first.” Before we start freaking out, James doesn’t add.

He and Xiong lead the way, chucking their stinky under armor and BDUs on the floor and then testing the waters. The other three are more shy, taking their time. They got nothing that any of them’s never seen before but hey, not everyone’s a showoff like James.

He hisses as he sinks into a hot pool, cupping his balls for insulation, then letting it all go as he lies right back, going fully under for three, four, seven seconds. When he splutters back to the surface, everyone’s in. He spurts a little fountain out his mouth.

“This is pretty good,” Hasani says. “Like a spa day on Tuchanka but without the radiation.”

They stay there for ages, splashing about and lathering up. Hasani’s even impressed with the shampoo and conditioner collection, if those are even the right words for the bottles and jars filled with weird oily goop. Varis finds the razors for shaving, even finds a mirror. He shaves the way he flies: easy, sure, decisive, with a smattering of Russian expletives. Barry massages some of the hair goop into his beard and says they’re gonna have to take this back with them. “Hasani, if you can reverse engineer this shit then we’ll make a fortune!”

The conversation’s easy, the casual back and forth of a crew who’ve served long enough to know each other inside out. It’s good, perfect. For the first time in a week, they’re relaxing, laughing.

They’re drying themselves off on scratchy towels when they realize they’ve got nothing to wear except their week-old clothes and those are so offensive they could just about walk out here by themselves. James wraps his towel round his waist and pokes his head out the door. There’s Bull, right where he said he’d be, humming. Bull turns and looks James up and down with a naked hunger that makes James go all wibbly but he regains his composure and asks about clothes. Bull nudges a big cloth sack.

“Got it all in here. Should fit but if it doesn’t I’ll sort you out.”

The wool is scratchy and the underwear is…voluminous. But most important, everything fits. They all laugh at each other, like they’re dressed up for some ren faire reenactment. Feels weird to see the crew out of uniform. Like they’re all on shore leave. They stuff all their dirty clothes and BDUs and armor into the sack their new clothes came in.

Outside, Bull says he’ll sort them out, get them clean. After a bit of shuffling, the clothes to be washed go in one sack, the armor in another. The crew hold onto their weapons for now, but James allows himself to relinquish the five grenades for purely practical reasons.

Bull leads them back up the steps and into the sunshine again. The two sacks go to two servants and Bull leads the crew straight to the tavern. No doubting that’s what it is. Even got people sitting outside drinking. Inside’s another world. Ale, smoke, fire, cooking meat, a load of people speaking languages that make no sense. Despite the laughing and mouth-watering smells James goes on high alert. Only one exit--the door they entered. Small windows. Reminds James of some of the dodgier bars on Omega. Bull shouts something to the man behind the bar. He nods in return. Bull leads them upstairs, to a table overlooking the courtyard below. They all crowd in and Bull drags a chair over to sit at the head of the table. He angles the chair so his back’s not completely exposed.

“Good baths, right?” Bull says. “This place is weird. I don’t know how you get hot springs this high up in the mountains or why the snow doesn’t settle in the castle but hey, it was here so we took it.”

“The Inquisition, you mean?” Hasani asks.

“Yeah. Long story but our previous base got destroyed by a dragon.”

“A dragon?” Hasani and Barry. James realizes his mouth is open so he snaps it shut.

“It’s the pet of the asshole causing all our trouble.”

“What is this Inquisition, anyway?” Hasani asks. Always with the questions. “When you were in the Milky Way, you said something about a breach.”

“Yeah, you see that big menacing green cloud in the sky?” Bull says. “That’s the breach.”

“Huh,” Varis says. “I thought it was an odd weather phenomenon. Like a reverse hurricane or something.”

“The ‘or something’s right.”

Drinks arrive. Six huge jugs carried by an elf. The jugs are pretty much the size of her head. James takes a sip. Then a gulp. This shit’s even better than the stuff they had on the way here. More like ale. Thick and dark and oaty. Alcoholic porridge.

Then food arrives. Stew. Potatoes. Huge bowls of it. James’ mouth waters and all talk stops while they tuck in. Shit, it’s better than what they ate on the way here, too. Properly seasoned and with enough spice to get the nose running. Now this is the kind of sweat James likes. Bull eats too, but unlike the crew, he can eat and talk at the same time. He sums up this Inquisition’s mission to close the breach, says the rifts are part of it, and that he signed on to help because, “I really don’t like demons.”

After James’ limited experience with them, he has to agree with Bull’s opinion.

“So, how’d you end up here?” Bull asks once they’ve all finished eating.

Everyone looks at James. He pulls at his collar. Times like these he hates being the one in charge. Hates trying to explain shit he doesn’t understand, memories he doesn’t trust. As much as he just wants to blurt out the whole damn story like a kid-- _there was a rift and we were orbiting it but then we fell through it and then there were demons and a bear and Xiong wanted to kill it but I said no so we ran away and we camped in the woods--_ he can’t lose it like that in front of his crew. He treats Bull like brass, then, and keeps his account short and sweet, starts with what he knows.

“Alliance sensors picked up more of those rifts. Given our previous foray, we were the ones sent out to investigate. First one we came to looked just like the one you came through. We set up scanners and settled in for a boring mission. It did nothing for 37 hours then shit got crazy and it pulled the whole ship over to it and there it was, in the mess. Gravity went haywire and we all fell through.” A pang of homesickness hits James in the gut. Or it might’ve been all the meat he’d just eaten.

“We got picked up by an Inquisition patrol. We were lucky, I guess. Couldn’t understand a damn word they said and I thought we were gonna be toast but then I said your name and did the horns and they started laughing. You got a reputation, huh?” Bull smirks and it makes James squirm. Yeah, he knows about Bull’s reputation. Been on the receiving end of it and everything. “Anyway, we walked with them for a week and now we’re here.”

“You got a plan now?”

James’ guts turn to lead. He works his jaw, looks everywhere but at his own crew. “We go back,” he offers. It’s all he’s got. “We go back through. Was kinda hoping you might be able to help with that.”

Bull smiles, wraps his knuckles on the table. “Yeah, I can help. We get you back to the rift, chuck you all through, then the Inquisitor closes it behind you.” He clicks his tongue. “Simple! You uh, know where you came through?”

“Uh huh. Varis made a map.”

“When can we go?” Hasani asks.

Bull pouts. “So eager to leave? You only just got here!”

“With all due respect, Bull, we’re not exactly here by choice.”

Bull puts his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, I get it. I’ve been in your place, too, remember? We could make a start right now but we’re missing the Inquisitor. She’s out doing inquisitorial shit. Isn’t due back for another week and we need her to close the rift. So, looks like you’re stuck here for a while.” Bull laughs. “Shit, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

By the looks of the crew, James isn’t so sure about that.

“Hey, listen,” Bull says. “How’s it going in the Milky Way? Apart from the rifts and crap. You guys survive my whole appearance?”

James hands this one over to the crew. They tell him about their debriefs, the shit that went down after they broke orders and helped Bull escape back to Thedas. That they’d managed to pull it off still impresses James. That they were still serving together surprises James even more. He’d’ve thought Hackett would reassign the two Ns but no, Hasani and Barry got their N5s out of that shit show. Bastards had it easy. N5 hadn’t been like that for James. Anyway, James got to keep the _Vespa_ and his crew and shit, he couldn’t complain about that.

The conversation comes to a natural end and Bull gets serious. He leans in, looking each way before speaking, low, almost a whisper. “Seriously, all this talk of rifts makes me uneasy.” He growls. “No, I don’t like it. Our expert, Solas, you’ll meet him, he’s not happy either and when the leaders are worried, then I start to worry too.”

James gulps. None of that is what he wants to hear. But before Hasani can question him, Bull leans back and slaps his knee, smiling again. “Come on, time for me to introduce you to the team.”

*

Turns out King Blondie isn’t a king. Cullen’s his name. He still looks suspicious but he shakes each of their hands and smiles. His office overlooks the keep on one side and that stone bridge they crossed on the other. It’s got all the same organized chaos as any Alliance admiral’s office. Only with paper instead of data pads, candles instead of LEDs, real physical maps with brass markers on them instead of holographic projections.

Leliana’s office is at the top of even more stairs. Getting there’s a mission in itself. James struggles to remember the way and hopes he never gets trapped in here. No doubting her role. The place is bare of paper. Intel doesn’t get written down here, that’s for sure. Ravens caw from cages and while the crew's there, two fly in with little scrolls around their legs. Leliana herself smiles from behind her hood, knife-sharp, and when she looks at him, James feels as if all his secrets are laid bare. He makes a note not to piss her off.

Bull veers off half way back down the stairs and opens a door. Hasani gasps. Books. Rows and rows and rows of books. A library, clearly. Dorian’s domain, Bull says. Dorian’s handsome and he knows it. His grin is wicked as he says hello in English. He’s got a firm handshake and James squeezes just that little bit harder. Dorian says something to Bull and Bull rolls his eyes.

Down more stairs, back to the ground floor. There’s a table in the middle of this room, clear save for a candle stick. An elf jumps at their arrival, caught red-handed, clearly, with a paintbrush in one hand and a…freshly painted dick on the wall. It’s a crude addition to an otherwise stylistically beautiful mural of a male elf. The painter, she’s got a weird haircut and once she’s over the shock she snickers.

“Sera,” Bull says. He says something to her and she replies, eyes glued to Xiong.

“Anyway, this is Solas’ spot,” Bull says. “He’s away with the Inquisitor but he’ll be keen to meet you.”

Out into the great hall, passing nobles and servants, then ducking through another door. By this time James has noticed how Bull deftly turns his head at each door, making sure his horns don’t hit the frames. Even James has had to duck to get through a couple of the doors.

This next room sure is fancy. Tapestries on the walls, a roaring fire, big poufy couches. The back wall’s lined with bookshelves, all filled with books and scrolls and ledgers. A hot chica in puffy gold and blue looks up from behind a massive desk, puts down her quill (her quill. Fuck, when was the last time James even used a pen?), and rushes over, ordering those milling around to leave.

“Josephine, these are--” Bull starts in English but Josephine cuts him off. She says what must be a formal greeting because of how long it takes. James and the others smile and nod. “Josephine is the Inquisition ambassador. She’s way too excited about meeting people from another galaxy. She wants to start trade deals or something.”

“Way above my pay grade,” says James.

Bull grunts. “Mine too.”

After Josephine has extracted a promise from James to hear all about the Milky Way, Bull leads them back into the great hall. He heads for the main doors but veers left at the last moment, stopping at a table where two guys are engaged in conversation.

“Varric,” Bull calls. He adds something else, excited, thumbs at the crew. The guy who’s not Varric eyes the crew as he leaves. Varric’s eyes light up and he slides from his chair, only he doesn't get much taller. He’s short. Way short. Stocky as hell but he must only come up to James’ navel. James tries not to stare as leans down to shake Varric’s hand. Bull’s still talking. He alternates between his language and English. “These are the guys I was telling you about! The ones I met on the other side of the rift! They came through a rift too!”

Bull and Varric exchange what are clearly hilarious comments and James just gives this pained smile at whatever’s so funny. Then Bull claps his hand on James’ shoulder and leads them back towards the door. “Varric’s a writer. He’ll want to talk to you too. Come on, just one more person to meet.”

James has no idea how they’re gonna be talking to all these people when they don’t know the language. Sure, Bull picked up English pretty damn fast but James suspects that had more to do with Bull’s intellect than anything else.

Last stop’s the stables. Stinks. Barry’s nose starts running and after a minute he’s sneezing so much that he goes and waits outside. Blackwall’s the man they’re here to see. Military, too. Might want to swap weapon talk with him. He’s gruff and polite but otherwise unassuming.

By the end of all that, the sun is low on the horizon and the air finally takes on a chill. Xiong yawns and that sets of James. Bull laughs.

“Guess you’ve had a long day, huh? I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to sleep.”

James confers with the group. Varis can barely keep his eyes open and Barry’s exhausted from his hay fever explosion. Bed it is. Bull shows them to their rooms. Up more stairs and through halls that all look the same but slightly different. No way James’ll remember all this.

They’ve got two rooms and while by rights James should get his own as commander, he’s not that selfish. Anyway, he’d appreciate the company. Tradition dictates that the men take one room and the women take the other. Tradition didn’t account for the women being friends-with-benefits. Bull explains the vagaries of the rooms. There’s the candles and lamps, pots under the bed, emptied by servants--or the latrine down the hall, left, left, right, then left. Someone’s left fresh water for them, and flowers. More clothes. And their armor and weapons. Almost like some rustic B&B back home. Almost.

“Need anything, just come find me in the tavern, or do the horn thing to anyone you see. That’ll lead you straight to me.” Bull pauses, looks them all over. “Hey, listen. Fucked up circumstances I know, but it’s great to see you all. Really. We’ll get you back home but in the meantime, we’ll show you a good time, okay?”

Before Xiong and Hasani retreat to their room, James calls a conference. They gather, the women sitting on stools and the men on beds that they’ve already subconsciously claimed.

“How are we all?” he asks. There’s a murmur, neither positive nor negative. “We’ve got a plan, right? We’re not in immediate danger. We’re clean and we got all the food we can eat. Hasani, tomorrow I’m gonna get you to run whatever tests you can. Varis, we’re gonna look at that map you made, okay? Sort out where we are.” Hasani and Varis nod. “Let’s get some sleep, huh? Rendezvous at…” he looks at his omni, frowns. “Uh, 0700 Universal Standard I guess. Ten hours away. We’ll get sorted on local time, too. All that tomorrow, though. Right now? We made it.” He finishes his speech with a nod.

The women leave and the men get ready for bed. Varis grumbles about not having his sonic toothbrush. Barry pulls his pillow away and finds a set of pajamas underneath. They all have pairs. Don’t fit James though. Not like he wears anything to bed usually anyway.

James flops back, tugging the heavy wool blankets up. Not the worst bed he’s ever slept in, so that’s something.

*

Morning dawns with the alarm going off. Nice to have some sort of similarity to home even if it’s Blasto’s soothing synth saying _This one wants you to get up_ on an omnitool. James’d been awake for a few hours before that, alternating between squeezing his eyes shut and commanding his body to sleep (he failed), and staring at the ceiling and trying not to freak out (he succeeds. Small victories). Varis snores but James already knows that. The alarm is a blessing. Permission to get moving. Varis and Barry grumble as James orders them up. He’s dressed in a flash then out waking up Xiong and Hasani. Only, they’re both up already, dressed.

They gather outside their rooms and look down the hall.

“Anyone remember how the fuck we get out of here?” James asks.

Between them they at least manage to get to the great hall, passing only a few servants who keep their eyes down when they realize who they’re looking at. They catch the dick-painting elf from yesterday--Sera--spying on them. Well, ‘spying’ is generous. She’s alternating between staring and giggling. James calls out, mimes eating and does the horns. She giggles and says something that could be like she’s taking the piss but leads them through to the dining hall. The place is packed, full of people sitting at long tables. A few chairs but mostly benches.

“Think it’s all you can eat or table service?” Xiong asks.

While James is looking around, he realizes that Sera has disappeared. His stomach rumbles. Doesn’t recognize anyone else. Can’t see a buffet either. He sits and the others follow suit. Feels just like being the new kid at school.

Bull turns up a minute into their mimed discussion with a servant, apologizes for not being there to greet them. “Long night.” He winks. The servant blushes when Bull speaks to her and James reckons he knows what’s going on. “We don’t have your coffee,” Bull says. “But we got an equivalent brew that’ll put some pep in your step. Teas, too.” James asks for the raw ingredients of the peppy drink so Hasani can do her thing on it. Damn he could really go a coffee.

They eat well. Porridge with milk and sweet spices, toast, jam, tea, water. Bull asks how they slept, all that usual talk. Again, James feels better when Bull is around. He doesn't want to think that too closely. While they’re all chowing down, the handsome library dude turns up. He’s way too immaculate and perfectly dressed. Sits with Bull and sips tea, talking to Bull while checking out the crew.

Bull turns to James. “Dorian says that since you’re stuck here waiting for the Inquisitor, you should subject yourselves to study. He wants to know your language, for a start. Might help if you know some basic common, too.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Hasani says. She holds out her omni. “I wrote a program last night to collect common and run it through our translators.”

Dorian gapes at the omnitool, reaches out, puts his hand through it. It makes a few noises as he sets off the haptics and he turns to Bull, clearly excited. James is gaping too. He knew he could rely on Hasani to come up with the goods but didn’t think she’d come through this quick.

“Say hello in your language,” Hasani says.

Bull says it. Hasani types a couple of keys then asks him to say hello again.

“Hello.” Just like that. In his voice and everything.

James laughs. “Hasani, you’re a genius!”

“It’ll need fine tuning but it’s a start,” Hasani says.

Everyone gives her their congratulations. This is gonna make this a lot easier. Dorian’s practically bouncing with excitement and James thinks Hasani’s met her match.

From that they work out a plan for the morning. Hasani, Varis and Barry go with Dorian to work on the translator. Looking for a less cerebral workout, James and Xiong follow Bull down to the training ground.

Bull introduces them to his own crew, the Chargers. They don’t wear matching armor and there’s no uniform that James can tell. Maybe that’s the merc way, but it rubs James the wrong way. Not that he’s one to wear his uniform strictly to regs, but a uniform’s there for a reason. Krem’s Bull’s 2IC and shit he hits hard. Real hard. Yeah, this is exactly what James needs. Bull bellows out orders in common and James figures it out. He glances at Xiong. Sweat beads in her buzz and around her eyes. She’s grinning as she blocks hits from a tall, stocky human guy. Yeah, she’s all good.

They spend all morning running drills. Like being back in basic. One person fucks up and the whole groups is punished. James doesn’t care. Nice taking a break from having to think, having to give orders. Bull doesn’t give James and Xiong any special treatment, other than doubling up the common and English when he needs to explain an instruction.

By the time Bull calls quits, they’re all fucking exhausted. James’ sweated right through his shirt so he just pulls it off and wipes himself down with it. Xiong does the same. He expected her to be in some medieval bra thing but she’s wearing Alliance sports bra and he’s strangely envious of this home comfort.

Bull claps them both on the back. “Good?” he asks.

“Nothing beats a good workout,” Xiong drawls, wiping her face and grinning.

A long hot shower wouldn’t go amiss but the concept of water pissing out a tap at head height hasn’t reached Thedas. The baths are good enough. They both luxuriate in the cool pool. No need to conserve water and that’s a luxury in itself. A servant takes their clothes away and replaces them with clean ones.

“Hope Hasani’s program is working ‘cause I gotta know how to say thank you to these people,” James says.

“Amen. Been a long time since I got treated like a princess,” Xiong says.

James glances at her sideways. Can’t quite picture Xiong in a frilly dress and diamond necklace but hey, not all princesses are tiaras and tutus.

They reconvene for lunch and swap accounts of their morning. Dorian and Bull join them, a couple of the Chargers too. Hasani shares the fruits of her labors: a half-working translator.

“The backend still needs some work and l could improve the voice recognition but it works!” Hasani beams. James’ never been more proud of her. “Want to give it a go?”

“Hell yeah.” James loads it up on his omni, feels a soft whump in his ear as the program connects with his translation implant. “Got something to say, Bull?”

Bull raises his glass. “To the best people to fall out of a rift since I did.”

James laughs, slaps his hand on the table. Xiong, too. Barry, Varis and Hasani all smirk. This is old news to them, after all. “Holy hell! Dorian, Dorian, you say something.”

Dorian blinks, figures out what James is asking and clears his throat. “It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.” He grins and James laughs again.

“This is a fuckin’ game changer, Hasani. Good fucking work, guys.”

Hasani smirks and raises her eyebrow. “That’s not all I’ve been working on. The ale’s 8%. That pick-me-up plant from breakfast has a similar enough to guarana to be identical, and those health potions of Bull’s? Amphetamine to get you high and a hydrophilic polymer to close up wounds.”

James shakes his head. This is his team. These are the smart-asses he gets to work with. God damn he’s a lucky man.

Dorian pipes up again. “Chakrabarti and I discovered we have something in common.” He nods to Barry and now Barry’s eyes light up. “Bull here told me about your little demon possession incident in the…Milky Way, is it? Yes, right. You’re a mage, correct?”

“Biotic,” Barry says. “Eezo--element zero--exposure. It creates nodules in the nervous system and--uh, more than you need to know, I guess.”

“Yes, right, well Chakrabarti gave me a little demonstration of his abilities and I have to admit, I’m a touch jealous. Even the best mages, and I count myself among them, don’t have the fine control that you have.” He turns to Barry. “I must learn as much as I can from you before Vivienne and Solas get their greedy little claws into you.”

Barry blushes. He fucking blushes. Unmistakable. Under all that beard, his skin darkens. James bites his lip to stop from laughing.

“Sounds like we’ve got your afternoon planned,” James says. “Got somewhere where we can watch these guys compare notes?”

“The great hall!” Dorian says.

“Nah, too public. The undercroft,” Bull offers. “Out of the way of prying eyes and a good few feet of solid rock in case something goes boom.”

Turns out they get an audience anyway. Cullen, Leliana, Josephine join the crew and Dorian, along with Sera and Blackwall. A dwarf woman called Dagna, too. She’s a bundle of energy like James’ never seen. So damn excited. James has to keep telling her to slow down because the translators can’t keep up. He works out that she’s an arcanist or some shit and really wants to study the crew. That’ll have to wait though.

Barry puts on a good show. Glows that biotic blue and lifts a few crates, directs them, blows them the fuck up. Yeah, that’s how biotics to it!

Dorian’s magic is different. He says his basic abilities are rooted in the elements. Storms and electricity, fire and ice. He demonstrates on a few crates. The staff he uses aids direction and manipulation of the magic.

“Similar to our amps,” Barry says. “We can use our biotics without an amp but we need it to provide fine and coordinated control. Dorian says most mages use a staff, but other things can be used too, like daggers or swords.”

It’s pretty fucking cool. James’ mind is racing at the ways this could be utilized in the Milky Way. The ability to freeze stuff? Create fire out of nothing? Shit, that’s a game changer.

“If you think that’s impressive, wait till you see this,” Dorian says. He lets out a weird rabbit-pig thing from a crate and then zaps it dead. Just like that. A round of gasps then--

Dorian does _something_ and the thing is up and moving again. He looks mighty pleased.

“Uh…” James looks at his crew. They look as grossed out as he is. “That’s…quite a trick.”

“Necromancy? You don’t like it?” Dorian asks. He looks hurt.

“It’s pretty weird, Dorian,” Bull says.

“It’s not left alive forever, just for as long as I need it,” Dorian says, like that makes it any better.

“You do this on people, too?” Hasani asks Dorian replies in the affirmative. “That opens up some interesting consent issues…”

Yeah, it’s creepy but James does his best to reserve judgement. Shit, like the Milky Way species don’t have any freaky customs.

Barry runs through another demonstration, giving Sera a classic biotic lift. She giggles and snorts as she’s suspended. The others decline.

“You mentioned something about you weapons,” Blackwall says.

Shit, yeah! This requires a demonstration with more space. James and Hasani trek back to their rooms to grab their firepower. Hasani clips on one gauntlet so she can demonstrate her drones. They reconvene in the keep and decamp across the bridge to a flattish spot to give a little demonstration of Alliance firepower.

Safe to say, the Thedas contingent are impressed. James lets Blackwall and Cullen have a go with his pistol and assault rifle. Bull’s fingers are too big for the trigger guard. Damn, he looks so sad, so James lets him lob a frag grenade into the air and that cheers him up.

“You never got to meet any krogan,” James says to Bull. “They have the kind of firepower you’d enjoy.”

Bull grins. He looks like a kid in a candy store and James has to say, he’s feeling the same right now.

*

They settle into a routine over the next few days. Xiong and James remain loyal devotees of Bull’s training regime. Barry and Hasani join in a couple times and James is pleased to see their hand-to-hand is still up to Alliance levels. Varis might’ve bitten off more than he could chew though. He gets decked, blacks out, and spends an afternoon high on the local painkillers.

Dorian teaches Hasani Thedas’ equivalent of chess. She picks it up quick and soon she’s beating him. He gets grumpy so he sets Cullen onto her. First match ends in a stalemate and their second goes on for five hours before Cullen grudgingly knocks his king over. James is so damn proud of her but he tries to keep his grin under wraps, at least until the losers have left.

Varric teaches them the more low key game of Diamondback. Now this is a game James can get behind. Like poker, but with prettier cards. Stakes are just as high though. And when the stakes are raised, James Vega pulls out all the stops. He’s cleaning the party out of their fake money in no time and this time he doesn’t bother trying to hide his grin.

Dagna gets her turn with Barry and James as guinea pigs. She waves runes over them and pokes them with shards of something blue and glowy. Even takes blood samples. There’s something very exciting about Barry’s, apparently. She talks too fast again and James gives up trying to figure out what she’s doing and just goes with it. Barry follows James’ lead.

By the end of the week they’ve had their fun but they’re starting to get antsy. James has to keep them in line with his commander voice once or twice and shit does he hate that.

They’re half the evening into a particularly tense game of Diamondback when word goes round that the Inquisitor is back. The tavern explodes in waves of gossip and whispers, even Varric and Bull put their cards down. A few shouts from outside, a neigh from a horse, then the door bangs open and everyone turns to look. James can’t see a damn thing, just a sea of heads facing the door.

”Make way, coming through, clear a path for the illustrious Inquisitor.” A female voice. The crowd dutifully parts and there’s a short stocky dwarf woman, all dressed in fancy Inquisition armor. Takes James a second to realize that she’s the Inquisitor, not a herald for the Inquisitor.

She grins, sly, eyes glinting and strolls up to the table. She steps right onto an empty chair to stare James in the eye. She looks him up and down, that half-cocked grin not slipping for a second. James keeps his mouth shut and hopes he doesn’t look like he’s about to piss himself because he sure feels like he is.

“So you’re the…aliens? That’s the word Bull used.” She turns to Bull and he nods solemnly. “You’re much more human than I thought you’d be, but then Bull said you were basically the same as our humans.” She puts her hands on her hips. “I’m given to understand that you can understand me. You must be James. You look like one.” James nods. She turns to Varis, Barry, Xiong and Hasani, saying each of their names. “Fascinating.” She jumps from the chair and claps her hands. “I want to know everything about you. Come on, follow me.”

“Inquisitor, please.” The Inquisitor stops and looks up at the speaker--a tall woman with a huge scar on her cheek. She looks exhausted. “This can wait until morning.” She speaks with the tone of an exasperated parent.

“Nonsense Cassandra! These aliens are our valued guests! They have travelled far to get here and deserve my immediate attention. Food wouldn’t go amiss though. Have some brought up, will you?” The Inquisitor whisks past Cassandra. James gives his best apologetic shrug and ushers his crew out, too.

Outside, and the Inquisitor has been waylaid by Cullen. The crew stand around while the Inquisitor and Cullen have a similar argument to the one had with Cassandra. While they wait, a woman, tall self-assured, saunters over to the crew. She regards them with the same curiosity as the Inquisitor. She raises her hand and it goes blue, like, blue smoke and energy whirling around. James’ body goes taut, joints all locked up and irrational, uncontrollable fear grips him. He tries to move but can’t. Can’t hear, either, even just trying to think, trying to process what’s happening feels like running through mud and just as his vision starts to fade, it’s over. The clamor of the keep comes back and his knee spasms. He catches his balance before he falls and sees the same thing happening to Varis.

“What the fuck?” He lunges for the woman but a huge hand on his shoulder pulls him back. Bull. He’s got Xiong’s head trapped under one arm and she’s struggling.

“Hey, it’s okay. She’s not hurting you,” Bull says.

“Yeah, I disagree. Go blue, Barry!” James tries to pull away, got get to Barry but Barry’s already got the woman in a stasis. Good man. James finally wrenches his way out of Bull’s grasp and stumbles away only to crash right into the Inquisitor. He lands on his ass, then he’s kicked to the ground with a boot on his chest and she’s looming over him, a knife at his eye. She’s still got that glint in her eye, hard as steel. She’s still grinning. Out the corner of James’ eye, Barry’s biotic barrier stays strong.

“Boss.” Iron Bull. “Boss, come on. He’s not gonna do anything.”

“You think?” She doesn’t look away. “Tell his mage to let Vivienne go.”

“James, tell Barry to stand down.”

“Not until you let Xiong go.” James has no idea what state Hasani’s in but he dare not move his head to go looking.

Bull sighs. “All right. But you gotta tell her not to attack.”

“You catch that, Xiong?”

Xiong grunts. “Yeah, Commander.” A small scuffle and she’s standing next to James, her leg just visible in his periphery. “Want me to kick her, Commander?”

James ignores her. The knife over his eye hasn’t wavered. “Barry, you hear me?”

“Sir.”

“Where’s Hasani.”

“I’m here, Commander. I’m fine.” She sounds fine, too. Strong and clear.

James sighs with relief. “Barry, drop the stasis.” He doesn’t hear the whump of the biotics dropping. “Chakrabarti?”

Two, three, five seconds pass, then the stasis drops. A woman coughs, chokes and there’s a flurry of feet in that direction. James swallows and stares directly at the Inquisitor. “You gonna let me go now?”

The knife turns, drops from his eye to his cheek. It just brushes the skin, a tickle that makes James flinch. “Bull _likes_ you, so I’ll let you live.”

She steps back and James closes his eyes, blows out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Xiong’s by his side, hauling him up and then Barry, Varis, Hasani are with him too. He glares at Bull but can’t read Bull’s expression.

The woman, Vivienne, glares too. “That’s quite the magic trick you have there.” She clears her throat. “Good thing you’re not all demons or this quaint little introduction could have gone terribly wrong.”

“Don’t you ever do that again,” James spits. Whatever the fuck it was.

Vivienne smiles, like the Inquisitor, all sweet malice. “My dear, I don’t take orders from things that fall out of rifts.”

The Inquisitor claps her hands. “Alright, alight. We’ve all had a chance to wave our dicks around and show who’s got the bigger one. Play time’s over.” She turns to James. “You were coming with me, remember? For dinner and storytelling.” She skips ahead, not waiting. Vivienne follows her, Cassandra too, after one last death-glare at James.

James and the crew aren’t going anywhere.

Bull glances at the Inquisitor and her trail of followers before wandering over to James. He rubs his neck, looks remorseful. “Uh, sorry about that. I didn’t think Viv would do that right out here.”

“What the fuck did she do?” James asked. “Who the fuck is she? And why didn’t you do a single fucking thing?”

Bull put his hands up. “Hey, I was stopping Xiong from starting a massacre. She’s pretty strong.”

“Don’t be so fucking glib. This is my fucking crew. Their lives are my responsibility and when I’m threatened--when _they’re_ threatened--I stop playing nice.”

“I get that, I do. Listen. We’ve been dealing with some really weird crap. I already said the rifts aren’t normal. We got a green hole in the sky and demons wanting to take over. That’s how fucked up things are. This whole Inquisition was formed to deal with this shit so when five weird-looking people step out of a rift, we’re gonna be a little jumpy.”

“What did she do to us?” James says each word through gritted teeth.

“She’s a mage, like Dorian. She was checking to see if you’re demons or not.”

“She could’ve asked first,” Varis says.

“Viv’s not the type to ask questions. She’s more into doing her own thing.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” James says.

“Come on, let’s go get dinner. Food’s always good when the Inquisitor’s around.” Bull holds his arm out to usher the crew forward.

James doesn’t move. “We’re gonna need a minute.” He turns his back on Bull and the crew form a tight circle, arms around each other’s shoulders. “We all good?” Nods and mutterings. “We gonna behave?” The muttering is more muted this time. “Hey, I need everyone in on this. That’s the only way we all get out of here. We work together. We behave. We follow their rules and we stay alive. I don’t want to have to fill out the paperwork for a KIA when we get home, okay? You know I hate paperwork.” That earns him a smile or two. “All right. Let’s go. I’m fucking starving.”

Bull leads them through the castle, down the great hall, right to the end where that throne sits. A couple of guards step aside and open a door. James leads the way.

Holy hell, how many steps are there? Varis’ll be counting, for sure. James’ll ask him later. How the Inquisitor does this every day with her little short legs, James doesn’t know. He reaches the final door short of breath. It’s closed. He knocks. It opens. Cassandra lets them in.

More fucking stairs. Holy hell.

The Inquisitor stands on a couch, one foot on the seat, the other on the arm and calls them in. “Come in, come in! There’s food for everyone, seats too. Make yourselves at home.”

The room is…a bedroom. There’s a four-poster bed with red velvet curtains, head against the wall but it's so big it dominates the room. Must be the Inquisitor’s, right? But she’s so small…Cullen and Josephine sit on the end of it, plates balanced on their laps. Cassandra takes her seat next to the Inquisitor on the couch. Leliana, Varric and Vivienne sit near the fireplace. Dorian’s here too, perched against a big wooden desk. The whole situation is real casual, like some dress-up party. Then James spots a man they’ve not met before sitting at the desk. An elf, bald, intrigued, with piercing blue eyes. James suppresses a shiver.

Right. So, they’ve got a choice of two couches and a couple of arm chairs. One of the couches is next to Vivienne and there’s no way James is gonna sit near her. The crew seem to be waiting for him to make a decision. Shit. He walks over to Vivienne and lifts the spare couch, hefts it onto his shoulder and carries it back to where the group stand near the exit. He drops it, dusts it off, and takes a seat. Go big or go home, right? That spurs the others into action. Barry sits down next to James, Varis next to him. Hasani takes the nearest armchair. That leaves Xiong. She picks up the other couch and brings it over. She winks at James, too. Yeah yeah, show off. Bull loiters behind, leaning against the balustrade.

“Eat!” The Inquisitor prompts them. She loads up a bunch of plates herself and thrusts them at the crew. “Drink?” Glasses next, filled to the brim from dark bottles. James sniffs. Wine. Blerg.

The Inquisitor finally sits back down. “So. What’s your story?”

Everyone’s looking at James. What the fuck does he say? Should he recount the same damn story he’s been trotting out for everyone who asks? He meets the Inquisitor’s bright eyes. She’s not what he expected. The personality. Bouncy and bright and curious but there’s a dark streak in her, man. James saw that through the point of her knife. Unlike Bull, James can’t see himself being honest with her.

“Let’s start with you,” he says. “You already know all our names but we don’t know yours. I’m guessing it's not ‘The Inquisitor.’”

The Inquisitor gasps, hand to mouth. “Maker’s balls, you’re right! How terribly rude of me!” She actually sounds genuine but James isn’t prepared to give a genuine smile back. She places her hand on her heart. “I’m Catrina Cadash. I know, I know, bit of a mouthful. Blame my poor parents.”

James nods. Uh huh. “Glad to meet you, Inquisitor Cadash. What’s the Inquisition all about? Bull tells us you’re living in weird times.”

The Inquisitor--James doesn’t want to start getting personal just yet--grins. “Very weird indeed.” She puts her plate to the side and folds her hands on her lap. “Let me tell you the story thus far.” Then she proceeds to tell a very long and convoluted life story about growing up underground (like a mole? Or one of those nug things? It’s not clear to James) and apparently being a drug or contraband mule (James can relate to that) and wanting a better life for herself (sounding a lot like James’ story here), so she escaped to the surface and headed to the conclave--a big boring religious assemblage, “Maker you wouldn’t believe how boring it was, until it literally blew up and I was the only one left alive.” (That’s where their similarities end.) More stories that James can’t quite follow. He’s hoping Hasani is, she’s smarter than him, after all.

And finally the Inquisitor reaches the apparent point. “Our enemy is a wannabe god called Corypheus. He wants my anchor.” She holds up her hand and shows the scar, all green, same color as the rifts. “He created the breach and we need to close it. The rifts are a consequence of the breach being formed. And--well, there is a huge chain of dependencies to work out but that’s what all these people are here for, right?” She looks around at the people she’s collected and smiles, broad and toothy. They’re her family, James sees that now. Still doesn’t mean he’s gonna trust her. “Until Bull fell through a rift, we didn’t know the rifts could open up into other worlds. He was only gone for a moment but says he was in your world for weeks. Fascinating. Solas, what do you think?”

Solas. The bald elf. Something about this guy gives James the heebee jeebees. The way he smiles as he stares, like he’s seeing right into James’ soul. Sure, looks like a nice old granddad, but one who’s seen some shit. Committed some shit of his own, too.

“It is a situation worth considering,” Solas says. He says no more.

“Enough about me. What about you?” the Inquisitor says.

James keeps it short. Says who they are, rank and file; where they’re from with brief summary of cosmology; and what they’ve done since they got there. The Inquisitor can’t get enough of their omnis and everyone oohs and ahhs when Varis projects the maps he’s been working on. Hasani’s translator gets cooed over, too.

“It’s been real nice you having us here,” James says. “But it’s time for us to go home.” How he’s gonna write this up has been niggling at him. Part of him wants to bribe the crew to silence so they don’t have to subject themselves to brass’ interrogations. 

The Inquisitor claps her hands. “Okay, so, we just get you guys back to the rift, kill any demons in the way, Bull throws your asses through and I sew it up. Easy! We’ll start tomorrow, yes?”

“Cat, please.” Cassandra puts her hand on the Inquisitor’s knee. The Inquisitor turns and an entire conversation plays out through five seconds of pointed eye contact.

“The day after tomorrow, then,” the Inquisitor says.

Solas stands. “If I may, I would appreciate the opportunity to study our guests, if they consent to it.”

James reads the barb as what it is: a dig at Vivienne. But he’s asked nicely and that’s good enough for James, even if Solas is a creepy old man. He assents, so do the crew, and Solas nods.

Plan made, the meeting, dinner, interrogation is done. Everyone shuffles out, except for the Inquisitor and Cassandra, down all those fucking stairs. James hadn’t appreciated how late it was until he reaches the great hall. The place is deserted. Just a handful of guards outside various doors, including the Inquisitor’s. He declines Bull invitation for drinks on behalf of the crew and they make their way through the castle to their rooms.

“I think we need a drink, huh?” James looks at the women and tilts his head towards the men’s room. Once they’re all inside and sitting pretty, he pulls out a bottle from under his bed. “No glasses, sorry.” He takes a swig and the drink burns in the best way. He hands it on.

“You been holding out on us, Commander?” Xiong knocks back the bottle. “Whoo! That’s got a kick.”

As they all drink, even Hasani, and that’s a sign of how rattled she is, James asks how they’re doing.

“I ready to go home,” Hasani says.

“I miss my mum,” Barry says.

“I miss my ship,” Varis says.

James nods. “Well we’ve got a plan for that first and third one. Not sure what I can do about the second.” The bottle comes back to him, lighter now, and he drinks. “What do you make of the Inquisitor?”

“Hot,” Xiong says. Hasani tilts her head and nods. Huh, well that wasn’t the reaction James was expecting.

Varis sighs. “I saw her first,” he mumbles and takes a drink.

“Guys, honestly. Don’t fuck anyone here.” James ignores his own semi-hypocrisy on this point. Happened in the Milky Way. And hey, he’s the commander. He can twist his own rules. “Anyway, I think she’s taken.”

They finish the bottle while trading tales of conquests won and lost.

*

James spends the morning running drills with Bull. He’s all melancholy even though he knows they have a few days’ walk until they’re back at the rift. Keeps himself entertained in the afternoon with Solas. All five of the crew hang out with him. He’s most interested in the Milky Way rifts, how they formed, what they do. What passing through one was like. Hasani gives him data she collected. Lots of numbers. Doesn’t mean much to James but Solas nods along like he knows what she’s talking about. Even gets a scribe to copy some of it out.

He runs his magic over them, too, and it feels nothing like Vivienne’s. Barry describes it as raw, like unamped biotics.

After dinner, back in his room, James checks over his armor. A little dented but the pieces will fit and work. He strokes his underarmor, the weave bumping over his fingertips. No tears, no weaknesses. He strips down his rifles, cleans them, puts them back together.

Then he does it again. And again. He’s about to start for a fourth time when he finally admits to himself that he’s delaying and he goes to find Bull. He’s in the first place James looks. The tavern, back wall, jug in hand, surrounded by his Chargers. He spots James and raises his jug in greeting, then sets it down, says something to Krem, and heads over James. He slings his arm around James’ shoulder and walks him out.

“How’re you doing, big man?” Bull asks. He’s leading them to the nearest set of steps, up to the ramparts. He lets go when they start climbing, hand brushing down James’ back.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just…Here we are saying goodbye again. I mean, we still got four days of travel and shit, but…this place is your home, right? I got that feeling of finality about me, last night here and all.” He scrubs his face. They get to the top of the steps. Bull turns left and James follows. “It’s been…Yeah.”

Bull sits with his back against the wall. James sits too, shoulders and arms brushing. “You want a goodbye fuck?” Bull asks.

“What! No--that’s not--I didn’t--”

Bull nudges him and laughs, low and rough. Makes James’ stomach flip. “Easier here than when we’re on the road, that’s all. But if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

Shit, he does want to though. Anything to feel like he felt last time. But James has been here before. Not Thedas, but this feeling. He knows it well. Hero worship. Attachment. He looks up to Bull in a way he hasn’t looked up to anyone since Shepard and that fucking scares him. Sex’ll just make leaving harder.

“You’re gonna be fine, James.”

James nods. Yeah, he knows that.

They sit together and watch the comings and goings below. People heading off to bed, guards changing for the night rotation, servants carrying bundles around in prep for the morning. James doesn’t want to stay here, no matter what pull Bull has on him. It’s not his home. Fuck, it’s not even his time. He wants his smart clothes, soft cotton tee, his boots with the special insoles. Coffee. Tacos. Tequila. Yeah, he’s ready to go home.

When the bustle has calmed, James stands. He puts his hand out and hauls Bull up. Just before they reach the steps, Bull stops him.

“If you reconsider, let me know,” he says. “My tent’s always open.”

James snorts. “Even if I managed to come up with a decent reason to share a tent with you and not my own crew, we’re still gonna be in a tent. Not much room for subtlety.”

Bull’s eye glints in the low light, teeth bared in his grin. “I’ve got ways of keeping you quiet, don’t you worry about that.”

James’ stomach flips again. Bull slaps him on the back.

“You, get off to bed. Rest. I’ll see you in the morning.” He heads off in the direction of Cullen’s office, leaving James with too much on his mind and a long walk back to his room.

*

The journey out to the rift only takes two days. The miracle of horses, James supposes. Varis points out that even in a shitty old Kodiak the trip would’ve only taken an hour, two tops. Would’ve been more comfortable, too. James’ ass and back aches like nothing else. First thing he’s doing when he gets back to the Milky Way is heading to Thesia for some massage therapy.

Pretty uneventful trip, except for the bears. Three huge fuckers just won’t leave the group alone. James one-shots each of them.

“Maker’s balls, we have to get us some of those,” the Inquisitor says.

Bull grunts. “Impressive, but not much of a challenge.” James just thinks he jealous. Anyway, he doesn’t see Bull complaining about the omniblade. They skin all three, butcher them and load them onto the horses.

That melancholy hangs over James at their last night in camp. He thinks about Bull’s offer again, but no, he can’t. Not just practically. He keeps himself busy to keep his mind off of it, talking through the plan with the Inquisitor again, checking in with his crew, establishing what souvenirs they’re gonna take. Barry’s got this whole business plan sorted for that shampoo shit. Then its bedtime. The Inquisitor’s companions shuffle off and James’ crew follow suit. The night watch stomp off to position and James is left with Bull at the camp fire.

“See it?” Bull points.

James squints, his night-vision not fully attuned. But there, in the distance through all the trees, a faint green glow. “Yeah. Homeward bound, huh?”

*

Takes all of an hour to ride to the rift. All of a minute to dispatch the demons prowling its radius. The Inquisitor holds the rift open, sickly green magic shooting out of her palm and James barely has a second to think _this is it_ before making his leap with his crew. He tries to look back, to see Bull one last time, but he falls and hits the ground. What the--?

“Maker’s balls, that fucking--agh!” That’s the Inquisitor, hissing in pain. James rolls over, rights himself, spots his crew, all four of them, sitting on the ground. In Thedas. The rift is…gone.

Cassandra and Solas have crowded around the Inquisitor, hushed, sharp voices. Bull stands back, scratches the back of neck, looks to James with a ‘don’t ask me’ look on his face.

A pained moan comes from someone on the ground. Varis, lying on his back, hands clawing at his face.

“Varis, hey, status?” James starts crawling over, ready to pop a shot of healing potion into whatever injury Varis has sustained. But there’s no injury. Nothing’s wrong, physically.

“What happened?” Varis moans. “We were right there! I could see the _Vespa_ and then--then it--it--” He dissolves into a choking cry.

“Hey, man. We’ll figure it out.” James flicks Hasani over, tells her to look after Varis. She looks just as dazed but she’s holding herself together. He moves to the Inquisitor, still hunched, clutching her hand. Cassandra and Solas part, letting James crouch in front of her. “Sitrep?”

“What?”

“Uh, what happened?”

“Maker, what didn’t happen?” The Inquisitor laughs. She’s out of it. The dregs of a healing potion drip onto the ground.

James turns to Cassandra. She doesn’t know. Solas stares at the Inquisitor’s hand, head tilted. “Something…interfered with the connection to the Fade…Not you, I do not think. Something more…” He trails off and James bites his tongue. Fucking _hell_.

Bull pats him on the shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hey. I gotta check on my crew.” He goes back over to Hasani and Varis, Barry and Xiong. Varis has stopped crying at least. He answers the question none of them ask: “Too early to tell what happened. Inquisitor took a hit. Might be a while before she’s cognizant again. Might have to wait it out.”

They all ride back to the Inquisition camp. A few of the soldiers seem surprised to see the Milky Wayers. The ride seems to have done the Inquisitor some good though, or maybe that was just time. She hops off her horse and starts pacing, rubbing her thumb into her rift-struck hand.

“It was weird,” she mutters. “I’ve always been able to exert some control over the rifts. At first they wrestle me, try to tear me apart, but then I say _no_ and hold them open, or shut, do with them what I will. But I didn’t close that one. It shut itself. The magic, it…shot…fired… no, no…retaliated. It fought back and it just--poof! Gone!” She looks up at the group then, beaming. “Gone! Just like that! Wow.”

Big grins aren’t exactly what James wants to see right now. “What do we do? How do we get back?”

She shrugs.

“What if we go through another rift?” Barry asks. “Or maybe the Inquisitor can make a new one?”

Hasani shakes her head. “We can’t risk going through another rift. They appear to be linked, one-to-one, between Thedas and the Milky Way. For all we know, we could go through another and end up anywhere. Like the middle of space, light years from help. Varis and Xiong don’t have armor, let alone space suits, and our O2, provided it still works, isn’t going to last more than a couple hours, max.”

“And I can’t just make new rifts,” the Inquisitor says. “Happened once but there was a dragon and I was too busy shitting my pants to figure out how I did it.”

“So we’re stuck here,” Barry says.

The words hang. James forces himself to meet his crew’s eyes but they’re all looking at the ground or the sky. He meets Bull’s and his one eye conveys all the despair and worry and fear that James really wants to keep bottled up for a little while longer.

The Inquisitor waves her hand, like she’s dismissing the dark fog that’s descended onto the camp. “No matter. We’ll think of something, won’t we Solas? Dagna will help, I’m sure. Dorian might have an idea.” She remounts her horse. “Come on, let’s go. I hate the Hinterlands. Sooner we get back to Skyhold, sooner we can figure out how to get you aliens back home.”

What choice does James have? He rustles his crew and they start their ride back up to the mountains. Without wanting to, he starts taking bets with himself about who’ll break first.

* 

Dejection doesn’t hit until they’re back at Skyhold. The five of them trudge up to their rooms late afternoon, James ignoring the stares from those watching. They hold a conference in the men’s room and that’s when the emotions rip out. Anger. Grief. Tears. Blame. All in equal measure and all directed at James.

“You have to fix this, sir. You’re the _commander_.” Barry speaks for them all but what’s James supposed to do? He takes it all. Takes all the rage and blame and he tells himself they don’t mean it, not really, it’s not personal.  He’s just the guy they can lash out at. At the same time he’s telling himself they’re right. This is all his fault. They shouldn’t’ve flown slow close to the rift in the first place. Should’ve blasted the demons the first moment they landed here and jumped back through. _Shouldn’t’ve_ spent his time pining after Iron Bull like some stupid, love sick kid.

Should’ve taken him up on his offer.

The arguing reaches a crescendo, four voices, desperate and high pitched, then--

Silence.

Realization. Their commander can’t fix this on his own.

Barry makes the first move. He shoves his bed against James’. Shoves Varis’ next to that. Xiong figures out what he’s doing and hauls one of the beds from the women’s room in and shoves that against the others. They all strip down into those woolen pajamas and pile into the now one big bed, clinging to each other. Dark outside now and when Hasani blows out the candles, they’re in pitch black. Snuggle in closer, tighter, no monsters under the bed if they’re all touching.

*

James wakes at dawn. He’s not refreshed. Neither are the others from the looks of it. At least they know where to get breakfast.

The Inquisitor is there. She slaps James on the ass and says she’ll think of something, don’t you worry. Bull says something similar, but without the cheery self-assurance.

They all cope in their own ways those first couple of days. Barry discovers Skyhold’s chantry and the priest woman, Mother Giselle. He shares what he’s learned while they all sit in the pools, comparing Andraste and the Maker and the Chantry to his own complex Catholic-Tamil background. None of it makes sense to James but Hasani nods along, and soon those two launch into an unfathomable yet spirited argument about the nature of God and the universe.

Hasani herself sits with Dorian and starts learning basic common. She reads aloud to the crew, just children’s books, before bed, night time stories about Andraste. James pays attention to her rather than trying to look at the pictures in the book. She furrows her brow as she works her mouth around strange words and looks so damn pleased when she finishes each page.

Varis continues to draw maps. They’re strewn everywhere. He sets up his omnitool to scan the sky. He sits up for most of the night, staring up at the stars, jotting down notes or marking his maps. The obsession doesn’t pass by James. He sends Varis Dorian’s way, who sends him on to an astronomer who seems only too pleased to have another star gazer on board. Whenever James checks in, Varis is talking about astrariums and constellations and shit that should make sense to James but doesn’t.

Xiong’s more into hitting things. Krem and the Chargers welcome her into their lessons again and she manages to pick up a few words of common (swear words, mostly), along with new moves.

And James? He’s just trying to keep up. He looks out for his own guys as well as himself. He nods along and manages to not look like an idiot whenever he checks in with Barry and Hasani. He helps Varis with his astrariums. He hits hard with Xiong.

He sticks with Bull and earns the nickname Puppy from Varric. He’d been called Shepard’s puppy, way back. Hated it then and he hates it now. He deals with the frustration by rage-eating chicken and punching dummies full of straw.

But they need more structure to their days. They’re not guests anymore, not really. Can’t freeload on Bull’s tab forever. They’re refugees, just like the refugees who’ve journeyed to Skyhold, torn from their homes and unable to go back. He talks to Josephine and she puts them on the books so they’re earning their own money.

“We’re gonna be here a while so let’s pitch in and help out,” he says one evening before Hasani’s bedtime story. He assigns Varis to the engineers. Put that Alliance training to good use and teach them something about the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in the galaxy. He sends Barry and Hasani to Dagna. The combination of biotics and tech made the woman almost wet herself with excitement when they first met, so this should be a match made in heaven. Xiong’s to split her time with the blacksmith and the trainers.

“What about you, Commander?” Barry asks.

James shrugs. “Gonna offer my skills in the kitchen.” One of the best things about being here is the food. Real meat--not vat grown. Butchered right here on the premises. Eggs, whole, not powdered. Fresh vegetables. Fruit. Holy hell. Helps that the head cook reminds James of his abuela. Loud little woman doling out love with a wooden spoon applied firmly to the back of the head. Just the best at cooking up a feast day in day out.

Reality is, James is up every morning before dawn, getting breakfast ready. He’s too big for the kitchen, twice the size of the mostly-elven servants. He gets in the way running sacks of potatoes and oats into the kitchens so elf-Abuela puts him on the stove where he can’t move too far, frying eggs. Hundreds of eggs. James is in his element. Can’t get enough of frying, boiling, poaching, and scrambling eggs. He even ventures to make huevos rancheros. Think’s he’ll be reprimanded for that display of initiative but elf-Abuela smiles as she tastes the dish. The glow of pride keeps James warm for a week.

After breakfast he does a little training with Xiong and Bull, then he does the rounds, checking in with his crew, listening to what they’ve learned, sometimes helps with lunch and most afternoons heads back to the kitchens to help prep dinner. Some nights he even stays to help the dishwashers, too. Then he’s at the tavern, playing cards with Varric and Bull and the Chargers and his crew. James does a good job of keeping his shirt. Barry, not so much. Keeps him busy, too busy to think too hard. That’s why he’s working so much.

The Inquisitor pops her head in from time to time and says something cryptic like ‘I’m working on an idea’, or ‘I have a theory to test’ and has to go out on a mission. Each trip takes at least a week and every time she returns, her shake of the head breaks the crew just a little bit more.

*

Disaster strikes.

James is heading up to his room one afternoon and he hears shouting. Varis. Hasani. He sprints the few meters and barges in to find Varis in a headlock, grappled on the floor. He’s spitting like a cat and clawing at Hasani’s wrist.

“Hey, hey, what the fuck?” James shouts. Both of them look up and Hasani lets Varis go with a ‘he’s your problem now’ look. She stands. Varis stays on the floor. “I asked a fucking question.”

“M-my, my, om-mni--” and Varis dissolves into a puddle of tears.

“His omni fell out the window. All the way down. He wanted mine. I said no. He didn't like that.” Hasani, so matter of fact she borders on cruel.

James purses his lips. “All right. Hasani, you okay? Okay, leave us please.” James waits until she’s closed the door before crouching and joining Varis on the floor. He puts his hand on Varis’ back. Serves the double purpose of comforting and feeling for a jump. “What’s happening, Varis?”

Varis is sobbing so hard that James can’t make out if he’s saying anything or not, so he just waits, rubbing his back. Eventually, a few words get out. His accent’s so thick that James really has to listen hard to figure out what he’s saying.

“I’m a pilot!” Varis wails. “A navigator! The two aren't mutually exclusive. I get us from here, to here, in the most efficient and economical and stylish way. I can make a Mass Relay jump look like child’s play. I can look at the stars in any system we’re in and figure out where we are. I can do triangulateration in my head. This! This!” He throws his hands up. “What’s this? This place shouldn’t exist!”

James has to admit that Varis is right. He doesn't say this though.

“Ever since we got here I’ve been doing what I do, navigating, but on the ground. Making charts, trying to figure out where we are. I set up my omni up to scan a particular star. It has an odd pulse to it, not natural as far as I can tell. I thought it might be the Perseus Veil Mass Relay or a geosynchronous satellite. I pointed my omni at it.” Varis points to his window sill. Yeah, he’s had this weird set up that went up after they returned from the rift. A steel wok angled just so, and a bunch of fabbed antennae stuck on the outside wall. “I was collecting the data during the night and analyzing it during the day only now--now--” He bursts into tears again.

This kind of breakdown’s not what James is used to. Tears and sobbing and giving up? Nah, James gets angry. Angry he knows what to do with. Despair? Despair just pulls his heart apart.

Figuring that Varis is no longer a flight risk, James gets up looks out the window. He whistles, long and low. That's a long way down. He pings it. Close to a click. Eight hundred meters straight down. He pulls his head back in, the sudden vertigo making him woozy. At least he can ping it. That’s a good sign.

“I need to get it back! “ Varis starts pacing, pulling at his hair. “If Hasani won't let me have hers then maybe I can use Xiong’s. She is not using it. No ships to maintain or diagnostics to run. She only watches porn on it anyway. “ He whirls and grabs James by the shirt. “Please,” he says, tugging James shirt. “You can order her to give her omnitool to me. Then I can continue my work. It is important!”

James takes Varis’ hands in his, pulling him free. They’re cold and clammy. “I'm not requisitioning Xiong’s omni, James says. He says it firmly, no argument.

Varis eyes well up again and the tears start falling again. His bottom lip wobbles in between muttering about his data. The data shouldn’t be lost. Should be stored in his omnichip under his skin, unless he’s been doing some crazy number crunching.

James leads Varis over to the bed and sits him down.

“We’re never going to get home,” Varis says. “We’re stuck here forever! I’m only 32! My parents, my brother--”

“We’re gonna get through this, Varis. We’re gonna go home.”

“How do you know?” Varis looks up at James with watery puppy-eyes and James makes himself hold the gaze.

Thing is, James had a handful of moments like this during the reaper war. Didn’t think they’d get through it, didn’t think they’d win. He’d start thinking of a future with no humanity, no asari or turians. No nothing. And then he’d feel very small. Powerless. His whole body would ache with a despair unlike anything he’d felt before. The ache would fill his throat and he wouldn’t be able to swallow it down.

But Shepard was there, telling him they would win and he believed her. If anyone could do it, it was Shepard, right? But after the war, once Shepard was gone and as James went through N school, he looked at some of those chats, those dances with Shepard in a different light. ‘Course she said they’d make it. She had to. Did she believe her own words? James’ learned over these past few years that yeah, you gotta make yourself believe what you say. You can’t win if you quit.

“We’re with good people.” That’s all he can offer. Sounds hollow but it’s the best he can do.

He sits with Varis a while longer, telling him what good work he’s been doing with his star maps and engineering work. “You’ve taught these guys in a couple weeks what would’ve taken them another two hundred years.”

Varis laughs. “Do you think that goes against first contact rules?”

“Hey, we’re the aliens here. You don't need your omni. You can do this trig shit in your head. What else can you do without your omni?” James’ got ideas of his own, should Varis need prodding.

Varis shrugs, shakes his head. “Cannons…” he starts. “They don’t have gunpowder here but they have the raw ingredients. It would be trivial to make a batch and test it. Not so trivial to do so safely. I could draw plans for a cannon. The blacksmith could make it, I am sure!”

“Uh, maybe giving a quasi-religious group that lives in a mountain castle a military advantage like that isn’t such a great idea.” Astronomy and physics is one thing…

“But they are fighting forces of evil, no? Surely it is our moral imperative to give them any advantage we can?”

James takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “The answers to those questions are way above my paygrade. Can you, I don’t know, invent the steam engine for them?” That’s pretty benign, right?

Varis’ eyes light up but fade just as quick. “Steam? Interesting… But...I will consider it. Not nearly as fun as blowing things up though.”

James isn’t surprised when Varis calls in sick the next day and stays in bed.

*

Barry proposes a rescue mission. Target: Varis’ omni.

“It’ll stop him blubbing,” Barry says.

More important, it’d mean being able to communicate again. Varis isn’t so quick on the language learning and that conversational isolation is doing him no good. But James’ reluctant to mount the mission, not so sure that Varis having his omni back is a good idea. The guy’s become obsessed in a way that just isn’t healthy. But, that thing is Alliance military-grade and while it can’t be used without being keyed to Varis, the tech loss alone is gonna be significant.

But James senses an opportunity. This is something he has some control over. Something he can do instead of sitting around with this thumb up his ass waiting for the Inquisitor.

“You got a plan, Barry?” he asks. Barry ums and ahs. Opportunity and learning moment. “You’re a big kid now, Barry. You gotta come at me with a plan when you propose a mission like this.”

He formulating an idea himself but he’s gonna wait, see what Barry can come up with. In the meantime, he runs a few calculations in his head, working out what the chances of his own plan ending in death are.

*

Xiong’s on the verge of breaking, too. James hadn’t seen it coming. Thought that when she went, it would be with a bang. Bottle smashing bar fight, that kind of thing. But she just goes quiet. Walks like a ghost. He thought she was just nursing a hangover. All week. It’s Hasani that tells him something’s up. A rare admission of what passes between Hasani and Xiong as a relationship. James seeks Xiong out, finds her in the pools, way underground. She’s in the hottest pool, sweating it out.

“Mind if I join you?” James asks. He doesn’t wait for a reply, just strips off and gets in. “How’s it?”

“You gonna do that shrink shit on me, Chief?” She doesn’t bother opening her eyes.

“Yep.”

“You want me to cry?”

“If it’ll make you feel better.” Shit, Varis crying was hard enough. He’s not sure he can cope with Xiong, big, loud, boisterous Xiong shedding tears but he means what he says.

“I’m not the crying type.” She sinks under the water for a moment, comes back up. Her eyes are still closed. He just waits. That’s another trick he learned from Shepard. Just wait. They’ll talk eventually, whoever they are. Ally, enemy, spooked contact. Wait long enough and they’ll talk.

“You know I’m Chinese?” she says.

“The epicanthic fold kinda gave it away,” James replies.

She snorts at that. “Never set foot in China. Don’t know Chinese. Never got taught.” Uh, Chinese itself isn’t a language, is it? Probably not the best time to ask. “My great-great-great-great-whatever-grandaddy upped sticks and moved to San Fran during the goldrush. Made his fortune and never went back. He was one of the lucky ones. Married a nice Chinese girl--she was a girl, from what the stories say--who came out with her family a few years earlier. Anyway, you know how babies are made.” She waves her hand. “Eventually the Xiong family moved east. Maybe striking lucky runs in our genes. A few great-great-great-whatever granddaddies down the line and one strikes oil in Texas. Made his fortune and never went back. To San Fran, I mean. China was gone, way in the past. Anyway. He survived the bust. One of those guys who made money out it, from what I was given to understand. So the Xiongs stay in Texas for a few generations. And then you know what?”

James doesn’t think he needs to say it, but says it to humor her. “What?”

“Daddy struck lucky. My daddy. Eezo, this time. A whole fuckin’ planet. Yeah, he was one of the early ones. Waited till after first-contact settled down--he wasn’t a cowboy. Bought a ship outright with his trust fund--great-great-whatever had a knack for accounting as well as mining. Went searching. Left ma and six kids on the ranch. Not me though. I went with him. You remember your first time escaping atmo, Chief?”

Holy hell, did he. The intensity of the g-forces alone are burned into James’ memory. He almost puked in his helmet.

“I near pissed myself,” Xiong says. “We didn’t go far that time. Just out to Arcturus. Daddy bought another ship. Not a planet-capable atmo ship. Just space. He was gonna go prospecting. He wanted me to be his mechanic, see. I was all about fixing shuttles. Quit school so I could fix ‘em. Anyway, I liked space well enough but I didn’t want adventure, not then. So he drops me back home, just like that, and flies away again. Comes back four years later sayin’ he hit pay dirt and he fuckin’ well had.” Xiong huffs. “Eezo, man. Element zero.”

James’ is wondering when the fall from grace is going to hit. The riches to rags.

“Heard of Hemec?” Xiong asks.

“You mean Heavy Metals Exomining of China?” She can’t be fucking serious. HMEC? Only one of the largest mining corporations in the galaxy? “But you’re more Texan than Chinese, you said that yourself.”

Xiong’s grin starts small and widens. Her teeth show. She taps at her still-closed eyes. “Racism’s alive and well in Texas. It’s more about image, anyway.  And tax. Chinese’ve got a good reputation for business and mining and tech. Getting to space turned around their rep for turning out shit. Daddy capitalized on that.”

James can’t believe it. He’s been shipping with the daughter of a trillionaire. His mechanic, who’s always got her hands covered in oil and grease and swears like a fucking trooper, is probably pretty fucking rich herself. “Can I ask why the hell you’re an Alliance mechanic, then?”

Xiong’s still grinning. “I like fixing things.”

“You could be working for Hemec. Get paid a shit ton more than what you are here.”

“Cash’s not a problem, Chief.”

James still isn’t sure where Xiong’s going with this story. Sure it’s fascinating and he wants her to keep going. Shit, he’s never had this much conversation in the four years they’ve shipped together. Maybe talking’s all part of her breakdown.

“I like fixing things,” she says again. “Always have. I was stationed at Arcturus for the first few years, maintenance and shit. Then I got given an offer to work on SSV _Logan_. You ever seen that thing? I got to work on it. So I worked on it. We went everywhere. Not that I could tell. No portholes down in engineering. I couldn’t tell when we were orbiting Earth from Palavan. Didn’t care. I just kept doing my job, maintaining that bird. I went up the ranks. Reapers hit. Stress hit. Turns out being staff commander isn’t good on the health. Didn’t like it up there. I asked to be reassigned after the war. That’s how I got onboard the _Vespa_.”

“You went from maintaining a ship that carried ten thousand people to one that carries five. Shit, man.” James shakes his head. He knew she’d been on the _Logan_. Didn’t know she’d been so high up.

“I like you guys. You remind me of my family. Except Hasani. I wouldn’t be fuckin’ her if she made me think of my family. But you’re like my ma. ‘Who wants some eggs?’” Her imitation of James is terrible but they both laugh anyway. “Never cried in front of my ma.”

There’s a choking cough but James can’t tell if Xiong’s crying or not. He slips further into the water, splashes around in case she is.

“Anyway. Long story short, being here’s made me miss something I never had. I don’t know what the fuck it means to be Chinese. Don’t even bother looking for the Great Wall whenever we’re orbiting Earth but I read about this dish a while back and now I’ve been craving zuì jī for weeks so I’ve made a promise to myself that when we get back to our own fuckin’ galaxy, I’m gonna go to China and eat a fuckin’ drunken chicken.”

James nods. “Sounds like a plan. Been awhile since I hit Mission beach--”

“So you better get us fuckin’ home, Chief.” There’s anger in her voice. A crack of desperation. “You better get us fuckin’ home.”

James sits up. He squares his shoulders and looks Xiong dead in the eye. “We’re gonna get home, Xiong.”

“You say that you ain’t done shit since that rift zipped shut. Strong words aren’t gonna comfort me. I’ve been in command. I know how you talk. I want some fuckin’ action, _sir_.” Xiong stands, water cascading off her body. She glares at James for two, three seconds, then climbs out of the pool.

James swallows hard, chagrined. Fuck. _Fuck fuck shit._ “Xiong. Shit, stop. Come’re.” She stops walking and faces James, hands on her hips. “There’s no fucking rift for us to get through. We go through any random rift and we could end up anywhere. Sure, we could get lucky and land in a nice air conditioned Alliance prefab on some planet in the Horsehead Nebula. Or we could get spaced in ten seconds. We’re fucked. Yeah, I said it. But we’re fucked if we only rely on ourselves. We got good people here. They’re gonna help us. And we’re a family, you said it yourself. We stick together and we let people help and we will get through this waiting period.” Hard to tell what effect that little speech has on Xiong. “You’re gonna get that fucking drunk chicken.”

Xiong stomps over and sticks her hand out. James grabs it and shakes, firm.

“I’m holding you to that, sir.” She lets go and dresses.

James doesn’t watch, but he listens out for the rustle of clothes, judging when she’s decent again. “You know what’s good for stress?” he asks.

“Hard to get a fuck around here. Hasani’s not putting out these days and apparently the Inquisitor is off limits. Bull should be a shoo-in given the number of servants limping about the place but he’s playing hard to get. I know that Sera’s into me but she’s way too flighty. I’d snap her in half by accident. Could go a round or two with Cullen but I think I’d break him, too. Blackwall’s too fuckin’ hairy. I’d worry about sticking him with my omniblade just trying to clear a path to his cock. That leaves all the prostitutes but I got a thing about paying for sex.”

James keeps his expression neutral. “Good to know you’ve thought this through.”

She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe Krem. He’s hot and knows what way round to throw a punch.” She leaves.

James slumps back down into the pool. Can’t figure out if this was a victory or not.

*

Better check on Hasani, let her know that Xiong’s…okay. She’s most likely in the Undercroft. James skips down the steps and shivers at the eerie temperature shift. He opens the door to the crackle of electricity and the smell of burnt hair and…potatoes?

“Hasani?” He jumps the last couple of steps to find Hasani and Dagna kneeling in front of a pile of potatoes and blue, pulsing rocks.

They look up at James. Hasani looks pissed but Dagna looks like she’s just won the lottery.

“What’s happening?” he asks. He edges closer and crouches down. The stench makes his nose wrinkle.

Hasani sighs and brushes her hair out her face. Yeah, that’s the source of the burning hair smell. She’s lost a chunk from the left side. “Remember how we used that demon slaying rune of Bull’s to lure that demon out of Barry?”

“Yeah, how could I forget.”

“It got me thinking and with Dagna’s help, I set up a chem lab. Something more substantial than what my omnitool could fabricate. I hypothesized that lyrium ore is chemically similar to element zero, and that if I could refine it and run electricity through it, then I could generate enough electricity to create a small mass effect field. Then we could use that field to lower one of us down to Varis’ omni.”

Sounds like Barry’s been recruiting.

“I’m sensing a but.”

“It hasn’t worked. Turns our lyrium is nothing like eezo. They’re both ores but that’s where the similarities end. Mages can do magic without lyrium, but taking it helps give them a boost. Templars take it too, too, though no one I’ve talked to is keen to elaborate on why. Eezo is necessary for biotics. You can’t be a biotic without it. Eezo is more versatile, too. Mass effect fields being the most obvious. Chemically, as far as I can tell, lyrium seems to behave like a powerful hallucinogenic. I don’t recommend taking it.”

Dagna grins at James “But this stuff? This electricity? Hasani’s been telling me all about and what you guys can do with it in the Milky Way! Lights! On all the time! Being able to control, _generate_ , _use_ the power of a storm like a mage, without actually have to do magic? Oh my. Oh, oh!” Dagna’s practically vibrating with excitement. “I need to go and requisition a lot of copper and then we can start on this turbine you were telling me about!” She bounces and claps her hands, then runs up the stairs.

Hasani smiles and shakes her head. “She’s a live wire.”

“No kidding.” James picks up a carbonated potato. “So, uh, what happened?”

“Power surge, of all things. I didn’t think that would happen but my omni overclocked the modified Leyden jar and boom, instant baked potatoes. The hair was collateral.” Hasani barks a laugh and shakes her head. “Stupid fucking idea,” she mutters. She sniffs the same time as a drop hits the stone floor.

“Hey, Hasani. You can still count this as a victory.” He creeps a little closer but doesn’t touch her. She wipes her face and doesn’t look at him. “Seeking a connection between eezo and lyrium? That’s genius. And all this shit you’ve done here? Look at this lab!” The place is full of glass beakers and burners and colored liquids. Proper mad scientist.

Hasani snorts. “I’ve had to go back to first principles, almost. So frustrating, having to reinvent the wheel. I should _know_ all this stuff but it’s just out of my grasp, and I can’t just look it up on the extranet. I’ve got to start where William Gilbert and Benjamin Franklin started and that’s so--” she hurls a potato at the wall, where it splats and sticks “--frustrating!”

James doesn’t say anything. He just sits there with Hasani, staring at the potatoes. Not much he can say, just got to let her let it out. Of all the crew, she’s the most level headed, the most optimistic. Always searching for solutions to problems before the problems even come up. She’s one the smartest people James knows and he’s not afraid to admit that he’s just a little bit intimidated by her sometimes. She’s going to go far, but she needs to learn how to compromise.

“How’s Varis doing?” she asks.

James chews over his answer. “Not great. No omni means no translator. He’s real homesick.”

“Me too.” It’s a whisper but James catches it. She gets up and grabs something from her workbench. “Think he’ll want this?” It’s a flat rectangle of metal, palm sized, with a metal circle on a pivot in the middle. Lots of little numbers scratched into it.

“Uh, what is it?” James plays with it. He lines up numbers on one side of the rectangle and reads them through a cut-out on the circle.

“Mechanical calculator. Whizz wheel.” Hasani barks a laugh. “Couldn’t find anything on my omni about electromagnets but I did find a high-res exploded diagram of this. It’s used by pilots for navigation. It was easy enough for me to make one. I thought it might help him, but it might just make him feel worse about not having a ship.”

Shit, this thing is cool! James has no idea how it works and he’s not about to ask. As for giving it to Varis? “That’s a real nice thought. I really don’t know what his reaction will be though.”

“He thinks we’re stuck here forever, doesn’t he.”

James nods, slow. “Yeah.”

“I don’t think we are, not yet.” There’s conviction in her voice. She meets James’ eyes and there’s raw determination there. “We’re going to get home, Commander.”

James nods once. “Damn right.”

“How’s Xiong?” Hasani asks.

“She’s, uh…” James scratches the back of his neck. “She could do with getting laid, I think.”

Hasani laughs. “That your professional opinion, sir?”

“More hers.”

Hasani sighs long and loud. “A little stress relief could be good.” She stands and pats James on the shoulder. “I’ll deal with her.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Now I’m going to… clean up these potatoes, I guess.”

James offers to help, and sneaks a bite from one that isn’t too fried.

*

Since everyone else is falling apart, James thinks it's about time he checks in on Barry. He’s in Skyhold’s chantry, staring up at the massive stone sculpture of Andraste. At least, that’s what James thinks she’s called. He slips in beside Barry, onto a pew as hard as any he’s sat on. Barry’s got his rosary in one hand, a bead between his thumb and forefinger. After a minute, he thumbs along and takes the next.

James settles in. He’s not gonna interrupt. Gives him a chance to just sit and chill, anyway. He’s never really considered himself religious. Nominally Catholic, like most in his neighborhood. His ma and abuela hauled him and his sister off to church at Christmas and Easter and some saint days but that was about it. Anyway, his pastor was also his elementary school teacher and he had no compunction about bringing fire and brimstone morality into the classroom. All seemed a bit of a copout to James, whether or not God even existed. James’ moral code came from him mother and father, later his uncle, then the Alliance. Sure, he served with plenty of believers and that was no skin of his nose. He just avoided talking about religion and politics, just like most others. Politics, especially, had no place for a grunt like James. Even less so as he worked his way up the ranks. Morality became more grey when he reached N7 and took his own command. Yeah, he’d get given a mission brief, a goal, but how he completed the mission was pretty much up to him. He took his moral code from Shepard those first few years. _What would Shepard do?_ He had the words tattooed in his brain. Even now, when he’s stuck, he thinks on that motto, tries to follow Shepard’s example. But here, in Thedas, he’s fuckin’ lost. What the fuck _would_ Shepard do here?

“Hey, Commander.”

James startles. “Hey. How’s it going? Didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good.” Barry’s still got his rosary in his hand. He nods to the statue. “You know, Andrasteism is superficially similar to our own Christianity. There’s this concept of original sin! Theirs involves worship of other gods rather than gaining forbidden knowledge, but isn’t that fascinating? And Andraste herself kinda comes across like Joan of Arc. The Maker is sort of more like the Abrahamic Israelite God than the Christian God with his turning his back on his creation for a while, and he’s this single creator of the world, you know? But that’s what’s got me thinking.” He shrugs, one shouldered, still staring at Andraste. “I don’t think any gods exist at all.”

James looks at Barry, panic threatening to simmer. Barry’s a committed Catholic, like really believes in the existence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, transubstantiation and everything. And if he’s choosing now to have a crisis of faith, then fuck man, that’s gonna be a lot for James to handle.

“God can’t exist, can he?” Barry looks at James. He’s got that appealing-to-a-higher-authority look on his face.

“I mean…” _What the fuck do you mean, James_?

Barry looks back at Andraste. “I’ve been thinking it a while. Since…since that demon possessed me way back. I know there’s historical and cultural context with our holy books. I mean, that’s why there’s no mention of turians or asari in our bible, because back in three thousand B.C.E., we didn’t even know other species existed, so we couldn’t write them into our religious framework.”

“Right.” James nods slowly.

“Our God created the universe. It says so right there in the first line of Genesis. Sure, take it literally or take it figuratively. I take it figuratively most days. But here, in Thedas, they--Andrasteists--believe the same thing, that the Maker created the universe. So, I mean, that could be an argument in favor of existence because they could be the same god that created two worlds and two sets of life. The beliefs are similar enough… But… That’s where I get lost.”

James is already so fucking lost that not even a map is gonna help him get out of this.

“Could there be two universes, sir?” Barry’s looking right at James. Sir? _Sir?_ _Por Dios._

“Uh, that’s--I--”

“Because we’re definitely not in the Milky Way. I’m 99.99% sure of that. Oh, what if we’re in another galaxy? We could be in Andromeda!” He’s gone from theology to cosmology in three seconds. “I guess it doesn’t matter where we are. Who created the universe or galaxy or whatever doesn’t matter. God, he’s…in here.” He places his fist over his heart. “Or, he’s supposed to be. But God doesn’t exist.” He shrugs, helpless. “God doesn’t exist.” He sighs. “What do I do now?”

Fucking hell. Barry’s really waiting for an answer. “Well, uh, you can still feel that presence in your heart. Sounds like that’s where God’s been for you anyway.”

“He’s not there anymore. He doesn’t exist! How am I supposed to live my life?”

The lightbulb flicks on. That’s the crux. The moral imperative. How’s Barry supposed to know how to live his life if the God who’s told him how to live doesn’t exist?

“You do what you think is right,” James says.

“Hmm.” Barry shakes his head. “That’s a slippery slope you’re on, sir. Thinking like that will get you into all sorts of trouble. You ever read any Nietzsche?”

“God is dead and we have killed him, yeah?” James quotes. Yeah, that’s right. He’s more well-read than he looks.

“You know what he meant by that?”

“Uh, no, can’t say I do.” Shit. Maybe not so smart after all.

“Nietzsche’s madman was concerned about how we--humanity--could continue to live once we accepted the reality that there is no God. How can we have morality without divine guidance? I never really worried about God being dead because for me he wasn’t. I wasn't some idiot atheist having to make up my own rules for living. I had it all written down for me.” James bristles. Is that what Barry's thinks James is? An idiot?

“Why do we even need divine guidance?”

“Because God--or the Pope--is morally objective.”

“Bullshit. There’s no such thing as moral objectivity. You said yourself the bible’s a product of its time. You think the pope is really infallible? We don’t to slavery any more but they were all over that shit way back. We don’t care about whether you’re gay or lesbian or whatever anymore. Marriage is a thing of the past, too. Societies makes their own morality.”

Barry raises his eyebrow. “You really believe that, sir?”

“Shit, you gonna go all Socratic on me, Barry? Look. I don’t believe in God. Any god. And I don’t know what’s right and wrong, I just know what feels right to me.”

Barry’s quiet a moment. “You ever question your orders, sir?”

James grits his teeth.

“You went against direct orders when Hackett wanted to take Bull back to Vancouver,” Barry says.

“That was different--” Ah, shit. Who’s he kidding. Barry’s right.

“And you keep saying that to be an N7 means making the hard calls. How do you make those hard calls? I mean, you, sir, you personally.”

James shrugs. He’s been backed into a corner. “The Alliance has guidelines. Expectations for how we act in the field.” It’s a cop out, he knows, but he can’t admit that his morality comes from a dead hero.

“Sounds like bullshit, sir.”

“Can’t get one over on you, huh?” Barry’s clearly waiting for an answer though. James shrugs. “I don’t know, man. For me? Your crew is your priority. We can’t help but put ourselves in dangerous situations, but we’re not kamikaze about it. I’ve lost guys before. Nothing hurts more than that. Nothing. Even if you know it wasn’t you’re fault, you blame yourself, because you were their commander. You were supposed to look after them. It’s worse when--sometimes you make the wrong call.

“When you go in, you know that you and the enemy are playing the same game, but if you think you’re playing with the same rules, then you’re halfway to dead already. I can’t be all ‘love thy neighbor’ when my neighbor’s pointing a claymore at me. But then you got Alliance regs. I wasn’t kidding about the guidelines. Sometimes you gotta bring someone in so justice can be done. Courts and shit. But maybe you read this guy’s file. Maybe you know why he’s being brought in. And maybe you accidently chuck a grenade at him. Depends how much paperwork you’re gonna end up with.”

Barry snorts.

“And sometimes, you look at the guy you’ve been sent to guard and you think he’s been through enough, so you let him go, even if it’ll cost you your job if you’re caught. So you make sure you don’t get caught and you make sure he gets away.” James sighs. He’s had to do some variation on all of those. Never easy.

They’re quiet a long while. Just the cool of the chantry and snatches of conversation from outside. James looks up at that big old Andraste and for a second she looks like that someone else he still looks up to.

“Not easy, is it? This being human.” Barry elbows James. He takes it as friendly.

“You gonna start questioning my orders?” James asks.

“You? No. As far as I’m concerned, your orders are gospel. You’re practically a god.”

James glances at Barry, eyebrow raised. Barry’s grinning. Just kidding then.

“I can separate duty from belief just fine. Not sure how I manage it, now that I think about it. But, this…god thing. Yeah. That’s a real doozy.”

James’ head hurts.

“I came up with a plan, by the way. Want to hear it?” Barry says.

“Sorry?”

“For rescuing Varis’ omni.”

“Right. Cool, yeah, hit me with it.” Shit, he’d forgotten all about that.

Barry grins. “I think you’re gonna like it.”

*

Barry’s plan is insane. Shepard-level insane. James loves it.

“Free climbing, sir?” Hasani says when James outlines the plan to the gathered crew. “With all due respect, that’s the dumbest idea Barry’s ever had.”

“Better than your dumb idea,” Barry says.

James whistles, sharp and fast to cut through the building sniping.

Xiong shifts. “I got to ask, why are we even mounting a mission at all? It’s just an omnitool.”

“It’s not just--” Varis starts.

“We’re getting the fucking ‘tool, Xiong. No argument.” James says. Xiong shrugs, one shouldered, the act full of contempt. “Barry and me are gonna abseil down the side of Skyhold, then when we hit rock, we’re gonna climb down. Free climbing is insane, I agree. That’s why we won’t be going without rope completely.” He looks at Hasani. “I was hoping you might be able to make us some carabiners and figure 8s. Got the resources for that?”

“No aluminum here. I’ll see what I can fab. While I’m at it I may as well try and fab some nuts and hexes, too.”

“Nice. So, we climb down, grab the ‘tool, climb back up.”

“Can’t we use Hasani’s drones or something?” Xiong asks.

“Already thought of that. My drones generate fire power. They don’t capture mass, so unless I mine Barry’s blood for eezo, I don’t have enough to create the sort of drone that could be used for lift,” Hasani explains.

“Hasani, if I fall to my death, you’re CO, okay?” James says.

Hasani nods, once, doesn’t even crack a smile. “What are you using for a harness?”

“Bull can make a rope one,” James replies.

“Rope?” Hasani raises an eyebrow. Xiong does too.

“Yeah. He’s a resourceful guy.” James leaves it at that.

“I still think this is insane,” Hasani says.

James grins. “We’re Ns, right? Insane’s our middle name.”

Hasani rolls her eyes. At least Barry is grinning.

The group breaks up, Hasani taking Xiong and Barry with her to help fab the necessary climbing equipment.

“Thank you, Commander,” Varis says. “It’s not just an omni. It’s…”

“Yeah, I know Varis.” James sighs. It’s not just the military tech. It’s not just Varis’ omni. It’s something James can _do_.

*

“You doing okay?” Bull asks.

“Yeah, fine.” James runs the rope through his hands again, slow, really feeling the fibers. This coil, it’s a keeper. Close enough to sixty meters of rope. He’s gonna anchor outside the window, through a loop. He’ll abseil down first, then Barry will follow. Then he’s got another sixty meter coil ready for the climbing. Gonna be slow going. They’ll have to stop every thirty meters, pull the rope clear from above, fix a new anchor, re-attach, and go down again. Based on where Varis’ omni is, that’s twenty six stops. But he’s gotta make sure that they’ve got a solid grounding wherever they stop, so it could be more.

“You sure?”

“Fuck, Bull, do I look fine?”

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?” Bull shifts closer. He’s got this half-concerned, half-amused look in his eye.

James raises his eyebrow. “I’m not scared of heights. I’ve jumped out of shuttles at high atmo with six minutes free falls. Done spacewalks on the outside of derelict ships. I’m not scared of falling.”

“Right. I got it. You’re scared of failing.”

James puts the neatly coiled rope down and glares at Bull. He can let himself be honest with Bull in a way he can’t with his crew. “This is something I have control over and yeah, I don’t want to fuck it up. This is the only thing I can do for my crew. We’ve been here for fucking weeks and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I can’t _stand_ it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Going after a fucking omnitool. It’s probably wrecked anyway.”

“So you’re going to do this death-defying climb because it’s something you think you have control over.”

James sighs. “Yeah, I know. It’s as insane as it sounds. I’m N7 though. Insane is what we do.”

“Like your Shepard,” Bull says.

“Yeah, like her.”

Bull puts his hand on James’ shoulder. It’s heavy and warm and James can feel his resolve slipping. “My offer? It’s still open.”

James snorts. “Thanks, yeah, I figured. But I…I’ll be okay. You’ll get to get your hands all over me and Barry soon enough, but thanks.” Bull makes a noise and James interprets its meaning as _your loss_ and takes his hand away. That reminds him. “Hey, so Xiong thinks you’re playing hard to get. What’s with that?”

Bull laughs. “Ha! Yeah, I picked up on that. Didn’t think you’d want me making a move on your crew though.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble with you guys. You’re a tight unit. Don’t need me interfering.”

“You’re happy to interfere with me though.”

Bull doesn’t smirk like James thought he would. He goes all serious. “Being in command’s different. You have a particular set of stresses that call for a particular kind of handling. Xiong needs a good fuck and I could give her that, but she doesn’t need to hand over the reins like you do.”

James’s stomach flips and he tries hard not to gulp. Or think too hard about why he keeps reacting the way he does when Bull says shit like that. “She’s, uh, she’s got her eye on Krem,” he manages.

Bull laughs at that, loud. “Shit, that’s a good one.” He slaps James on the back, friendly. “I’ll leave you to it. See you tomorrow for the big climb.”

“Yeah, thanks. Sleeping’s gonna be easy tonight.”

Bull smiles at the sarcasm and leaves James with his coils of rope.

*

There’s a crowd gathered outside. Word of their climb spread like a rash throughout Skyhold and now people line the ramparts for a view, packed like sardines. At least, that’s what Xiong said when she came in a few minutes ago. James thinks she’s just trying to get him nervous. She’ll have to try harder than that. Barry doesn’t look fazed either.

The door opens and in comes Bull.

“Hey, you seen how many people are out there?” he asks.

James ignores him and goes back to checking over his gear. Rope, nuts, hexes, nut tool, ATC, figure 8s. Hasani’s outdone herself. Chalk. Food and water, because they’re gonna be on that mountain for the whole day. Climbing shoes--Krem sewed them. Good stiff sole. Helmet and omnitool, HUD keyed in for Barry, comm link checked between the ground crew and HQ. Feels good.

Right. Time for the harness. This is the part that’s got James sweating the most. He turns to Bull, says hi. Bull’s not leering or smirking. He’s straight down to business. James likes that about him. Doesn’t compromise James’ authority. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Bull has James stand in the middle of the room. He runs the rope through his hands, finds the center point, folds the rope in half and…just starts winding it around James’s hips and thighs, over his pants. James’ kinda got to squat a bit to give Bull room to work the rope around his thighs. It’s pretty relaxing, really. The way Bull’s fingers fiddle with the rope, getting it in place, yeah, that’s real nice.

“Enjoying yourself, Chief?” Xiong asks.

James glares at her. She shuts up.

Bull slips in the ATC so it’s in place permanently--not James’ preferred way but when in Rome--and gives it a good hard tug. James almost topples forward and has to cartwheel his hands to stay balanced. Bull nods, apparently satisfied, and keeps winding and tying. Then he’s done. He leans back, gives that ATC another tug.

“Looks good,” Bull says.

Xiong clears her throat. Hasani’s looking anywhere but at James. Varis just looks sad. Barry’s staring directly at James’ crotch and for a split second, James’ terrified he’s cracked one, but he definitely hasn’t. No, no way.

“It’s very…” Barry starts. Better not be having second thoughts.

“Accentuates the package,” Xiong says.

“Yeah, yeah that’s it! You look way massive, Commander.”

Xiong and Bull both snort.

“Thank you, Barry. You’re next.” James steps away, walking funny with the rope tugging and pulling. Feels good though. Feels damn secure. He might have to get lessons from Bull, integrate this shit into N training. He definitely tries not to think about what this would be like naked and without his crew in the room.

Barry ends up being chill. No comments from him and nothing from the peanut gallery either. Bull’s pretty quiet too. Once James has finished hitching on his share of the gear, he watches Bull. He gets this real serene look on his face, concentrating and calculating. He gives Barry the same tug on his ATC, nods, then slaps him on the ass. “You’re done too.”

Barry grins. He piles on his gear.

“Comm check,” James says. They put their helmets on, sync with their omnis. They look ridiculous without the rest of their armor, but James vetoed full armor. They’ll need full maneuverability when they’re on the rock. He’s not prepared to sacrifice safety completely though, hence the helmets.

“Check check.” Barry comes through loud and clear. Hasani and Xiong check in too. Hasani’s in charge in HQ, Xiong running backup, not that there’s much for her to do.

“Alright,” James says. “Let’s get this show on the road.” He thumps his fists on Barry’s helmet and Barry does the same to James. Then he hops onto the windowsill and starts tying into the first anchor point.

“Commander,” Varis says, stepping over. “You don’t have to do this. It--it’s just an omnitool. I can get a new one when get back.”

“If we ever get back,” Xiong huffs.

James glares at her then looks at Varis. “Varis, we’re getting your ‘tool back.”

“It’s too dangerous! It’s such a long way down and there’s no backup! I can’t fly in and grab you guys if you get stuck!”

“We better not get stuck then.” James grins. Then he turns around and jumps out the window.

*

Shit, there really is a crowd. James waves. He recognizes a few of the faces. They look horrified. He grins. He’s having a great time. The harness fits perfectly and the rope’s holding up well. He makes it to the base of Skyhold in no time. Setting up the next anchor’s pretty easy too. He’s careful, tests it best he can, then secures himself and calls to Barry.

Barry’s not quite the showoff James is, and his first lean out the window is tentative. He’s breathing hard and James can hear it through the comms. That first leap is the hardest but once you're out there, you’re good. That’s why James doesn’t think. He just goes.

Soon enough Barry’s on the wall, abseiling down. “View’s pretty good from out here,” he says.

“You’re right about that.”

He reaches James and the give each other fist bumps. Now it gets complicated. Barry’s gonna be anchored in here and belay James while James abseils down first. Then James anchors in and belays Barry. And they do that again and again until they reach the objective. Twenty-six times, give or take. Going down’s easy. Going back up’s gonna be hell.

“Sitrep, Commander.” Hasani.

“Yeah, all good, Hasani. Tied in at Anchor Two.”

Xiong cuts in. “Varric’s got me running a book on which one of you’s gonna go splat first. Odds aren’t in your favor, Chief. They all think you’re too heavy. Gonna sink like a stone.”

James snorts. “Thanks for the update, Xiong. How’s Bull looking?”

Silence for a moment, then Xiong comes on again. “Looks like he’s shitting a brick.”

James barks a laugh. “Tell him he can buy me a beer when I get back.”

“Aye, Chief.”

The trip down goes smoothly enough. Almost disappointing how easy it is. They leave as many hexes and nuts in as they can to make the return trip easier.

James is on his last decent, according to his omni. Varis’ omni should be around here somewhere but the rock is pretty smooth. Not much in the way of ledges for it to sit on. Still, James’ omni’s pinging Varis’. He takes a bit more slack and feels around.

“Any luck, Commander?” Barry calls.

“Fuck all,” James replies.

“It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

James grunts in agreement.

“Commander, I’ve got you sitting right on top of it.” That’s Hasani back at HQ.

“Well unless it's now a rock, then I can’t see it.” He clambers a little to the right, over top of what looks like an overhang. A spray of stones rain down. Just the rope rubbing against the rock. Still, he doesn’t want that happening too much.

James spends the best part of ten minutes looking for this fucking thing. Doesn’t help that it’s a small model. Clear, too. Pretty much a bracelet. James’ is similar. Something he can wear all the time. Can’t remember the last time he took it off. The one he’s got on his armor is bigger, more robust. The two interact and sync with each other and the chip under his skin. He pings Varis’ again, just in case it lights up or makes a noise or something. Nothing. “Come on, you fucker.” He crab-climbs further to the right and--is that--a nest? A bird nest? He lets out more slack and goes to investigate. A pile of straw and hay and feathers, bits of wool. No trees around here so must’ve come from Skyhold itself. All put together nicely. It’s a pretty big nest but there aren’t any birds around. And no eggs inside. But there, in the middle, a cracked omni woven into the wall of the nest. He eases it out, keeping balanced with his free arm. Doesn't want to pull the whole nest apart. Yeah, there’s not much left. The housing is all but gone. Just a few of the wires and the core processor. He pockets it.

“Got it,” he says.

Scratching and scuffing in his ear and then Varis. “Is it working?”

“Can’t tell yet. Let me get off this rock and I’ll find out.” It’s not a total lie. It could be salvageable, he’s just not sure yet. No point letting Varis stress any more than he already is. “Barry, I’m gonna work my way back up to you, okay?”

“Roger that.”

More stone fall, some bigger than before. James looks up and one clonks his helmet. The noise is more of a fright than the actual impact. ”Hey, watch what you’re doing up there, Barry.”

A scrabble, more stone, big stones, a _fuck_ squeaked into James’ earpiece. His rope goes slack and there’s a screech like nothing else from inside his helmet as well as outside. He clings to the rock face. “Barry?” Nothing but shouting and screeching. “Chakrabarti, come in, dammit.”

A whole heap of shit happens all at once. Barry shouts something about being under attack, which makes no fucking sense until a huge-ass bird swoops down, talons out, and tries to take off with James’ head. “Jesus fucking Christ! Dios.” He swipes at the bird, hitting it, but it doesn’t do much damage. The bird has another go and more stones are raining down on top. A rock lands on his hand and he swears. It rolls off, taking some skin with it. The bird flies in, pulling and tearing at James’ arm and as he yanks it back, he loses his balance and slips. He scrabbles for the rock but can’t get a hold. He falls, right off the overhang, his stomach in his throat for one point three seconds of freefall and then the rope goes taut and he’s swinging in midair.

“Holy hell.” Don’t look down. _Don’t look down_. He looks up. The bird sits in the nest, shoving bits of straw back in place.

“What the fuck’s happening Commander?” Hasani.

“There was a bird attack and now I’m hanging. Barry?”

Barry grunts, heavy breaths in James’ ear. “Uh, I’m anchored in, sir. Got a good enough hold of you but fuck you’re heavy.”

“Hanging? Are you kidding me?” Hasani.

Then Xiong cuts in. “A bird, what the fuck are you talking about, Chief?”

“Exactly what is sounds like, Xiong. Omni was in its nest. Turns out it doesn’t like visitors.”

“You doing okay?” Hasani again.

James looks down. Holy hell that’s a long way down. _Fucking idiot._ “Think I might piss myself.” He squeezes his eyes shut but the vertigo’s hit already. Fear grabs him, stomach churning, bowel liquefying fear. He’s hanging above nothing. The ground is so far down it might as well not be there.

He breathes, once, twice, three times, then opens his eyes. He doesn’t look down. Okay. Rationalize. Compartmentalize. This is no time for freaking out. Assess the situation, make a plan.

He’s five meters from the rock above, about three from the face. Could swing in and climb up the overhang. Barry’s not gonna be able to haul him up unless he uses his biotics but something about his tone set off alarm bells. Third option: haul ass up the rope. It’s got a huge strain on it already, and it’s pulled tight over the lip of the overhang. Plus, when he gets up there, he’ll have to deal with that fucking bird again. Didn’t pack a pistol. _Always pack backup_.

His hand starts throbbing and he remembers the rock that hit him. It’s not too bad, not broken, but the skin’s split and there’s blood enough to be annoying. He has to let go of the rope to fish through his pockets for a healing vial. Bull’s harness creaks but holds up. With shaking hands, he pours the red goo onto his hand and arm. The effect is immediate. Just like amphetamines. Holy hell, this shit is good. He blinks, eyes wide. Every individual blood cell races through his veins, from his brain to his toes. Shit, yeah!

“I’m coming up, Barry. Hold steady.” And he _hauls_ himself up the rope, hand over hand, muscles pumping. Not fucking easy but he does it in four quick, hard busts. He gets his fingers onto the rock, then swings his legs under the overhang and thank fuck, he finds purchase first time. He lets himself hang, upside down, as he looks for holds. There, a little over to the left--away from the fucking nest. He makes it, hold by hold, until he’s more or less vertical again, climbing to the side of the mountain. The bird looks at him, ruffles and for a second he thinks it’s gonna attack again. It stays still, thank fuck.

James climbs his way up to Barry and together they perch on a tiny platform. Barry’s gone some awful green-grey color and his eyes are wide. He’s shaking. “I--I--” He gapes a little longer. “You--”

“Barry, I’m fine.”

Barry’s shaking, his whole body, teeth chattering until he clamps his mouth shut. James gives him a flask of water and when he’s downed that, he gives him an apple. Barry hands him the core and James throws it off the ledge, really hurls it. Barry starts wailing.

“I should’ve--biotics--bird.” His hands tremble as he forms a stasis field, blue and humming. It fizzles out.

“Hey, post-mortem later, okay.” James points up. Got eight hundred meters of rock to climb. He realizes, with a sharp clarity, that he’s running on more than just adrenaline. These healing potions really pack a punch. “Let’s go up, yeah? I’ll lead.”

The first three pitches are easy. The rock’s so gnarled that they could climb without rope. But as they pause for a rest at the start of the fourth, fatigue hits James. He eats and shakes out his arms, muscles burning. His fingertips are raw. Barry’s the same. And he’s quiet. Real quiet. Doing an excellent job of belaying and climbing, but he’s too quiet, man. James’ acutely aware of their conversation in the chantry. Shit, he picked the wrong day to stop believing in God.

“Barry, you cool?” James asks.

Barry nods.

“We just got to get back up there and then we can freak out, okay?”

Barry nods again. “I’d like that, sir.”

“Me too.”

“Hey, Commander,” Hasani asks. “What’s happening?”

“Just having a little rest, Hasani.”

“You don’t sound good.”

“I’m keeping myself together.”

They take turns leading the next lot of pitches before James calls for a break on a ledge they can actually sit on. This shit’s taking it out of them and they still got a ways to go. Judging by the sun, they’re not gonna make it back by dark. They sit with their backs to the rock, feet dangling over the edge. They eat cheese and meat and look out over snow-covered mountains. As far as the fucking eye can see. Barry’s doing better. Moving more fluidly now, talking, too.

“Almost romantic,” he says.

James nods. “Yeah, if it weren’t for the certain death part.”

Barry glares at him.

“Too soon?”

They finish eating in silence.

Barry leads the next lot and sure enough, by the time they reach the bottom of all that smooth Skyhold rock, the sun’s dipped below the horizon. They’re not in complete darkness though. They’ve still got their audience, holding up an assortment of torches. Some of those glowy blue lights float down and Hasani says they can thank Solas for them. They’re nice, and they provide more light than their omnis do.

“One last, climb, Barry.”

“Don’t jinx it, sir.”

James holds his hand out. “After you.” He steps aside and watches as Barry makes a start. This is gonna be the hardest pitch of all. And it’s the last one of course, when they’re already completely fucked. The masonry's so good that there’s barely a handhold on the smooth, vertical walls. Xiong’s up top though, pulling. Bull, too maybe. When Barry’s above head height, James turns and looks at the view. Can’t see a damn thing. Too dark now. He looks down and shivers, reality of his fall starting to sink in. _No, not yet, James_.

Xiong sticks her head out the window and calls down. James looks up. Clear run to the top. He flattens himself against the wall and starts climbing.

He throws off Hasani and Xiong’s efforts to haul him in over the windowsill and drags himself over then drops on the floor, starfishes out face down. Fucking made it. Varis slaps his back, Xiong too. Hasani helps him to stand and starts scanning him. Varis is sitting on a bed, free of his harness and helmet and eating something steaming from a bowl.

“Hey, James.” Bull. Big old Bull. James has to look up and he realizes just how fucking sore his neck is. “Sounds like you had quite the adventure.”

James barks a laugh. “You could say that.” He digs around in his pocket and pulls out the omni. “Varis, here you go.”

They crowd around as Varis slips the omni over his wrist. He pushes it but nothing happens.

“Shake it. Maybe it’s dead,” Xiong says.

Varis shakes his wrist and tries again. The haptics flicker and die so quick that if it wasn’t for the collective gasps, then James would’ve thought he’d imagined it. Varis tries again and again. Nothing.

James slings his arm around Varis’ shoulder. “Hey, we got it, huh? That’s the main thing. Give us some time. I’m sure we can sort it out.” Varis turns and buries himself against James’ chest. He’s shaking. James wraps Varis in his arms and just holds him. Not much else he can do. Hasani catches his eye, mouths that she’ll take a look at in the morning. Xiong points to a bowl of something. James nods. He wants a fucking shower and a beer, that’s for sure. Then Bull’s in his vision and he thinks of something else entirely. Varis pulls away, assures James that he'll be okay, thanks him by kissing his hands, and slinks away to sit on his bed, still poking at his omni.

“You want me to undo you?” Bull asks.

Fatigue hits James like a rock to the head. He nods. Bull tugs at the harness, pulling the rope free. Every loop brings life back into his legs that he didn’t know he’d lost. Probably shouldn’t’ve worn it for so long but he did what he had to. He wobbles when he’s free, and stumbles onto his bed. Bull sits next to James and takes off James’ shoes, too, and gives his feet a rub. James sighs and relaxes. Xiong hands him the bowl. Beef stew. Shit, yeah.

“You almost died.” Hasani, pissed off and standing in front of James with her hands on her hips.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He spoons a mouthful of stew in.

“You fell and only this shitty rope saved you.” Hasani holds up the rope and James sees just how frayed it is. He swallows, hard. Didn't know it’d taken that much of a bashing. Fuck. “Yeah, you see how serious this is?”

“Hasani, please. Not now, huh? I’m fucked. We both are.”

Hasani grits her teeth and stands there glaring for a few more seconds before dropping the rope and going and sitting next to Barry.

Bull gets up and almost upsets James’ balance. “I’ll leave you guys to it. Good day but let’s not do this again any time soon.”

“Yeah, hey thanks Bull. We couldn’t’ve done this without you.”

Bull smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. James doesn’t know what’s going on there, but he’s too tired to think about it too hard. He finishes his stew, then has another bowl. It’s cold but he doesn’t care.

That night, they push the beds together and sleep in a pile again. James is out to it as soon as his head hits the pillow.

*

Reality of yesterday’s mission starts to sink in. James is up early. He pulls on his pants and looks out the window. He recognizes a few of the rocks from yesterday, but only from the first pitch. They’d gone a long way down. The rope’s still on the floor. He picks it up. Frayed and rubbed, half the strands broken. Nausea hits him, the reality of just how close he came to falling. Really falling. Like, all the way down falling. He sways, sits.

“James?”

James turns around. Barry’s sitting up, hair a mess, still half asleep. “You never called me James before.”

“I’m sorry.”

James can’t tell if he’s apologizing for that, or something else. He assumes it’s something else. Something from yesterday. “Not your fault, Barry. Just a fucking bird.”

Barry nods, and lies back down in the human pile.

*

Hasani gives James a mouthful when she’s up and about. James lets her rant about pulling dangerous stunts and almost dying. She’s not used to being stuck in HQ, he reasons. Used to being in the ground crew. Manning HQ brings its own stresses. Helplessness, mostly, specially in a situation like yesterday’s. Can’t do much but watch shit fall apart.

She can’t fix Varis’ omni, either. It’s fucked. Only the transponder is left working and that’s a miracle in itself, she says.

“Don’t beat yourself up about this,” James says.

Hasani rolls her eyes and scoffs.

“Hey, I know you. Don’t beat yourself up. The objective was to get the omni, and we did that. When we get home, we’ll fix it properly.”

“We’re not getting home,” Hasani says. She storms off, ignoring James’ calls.

Fuck.

*

No working omni means Varis still doesn’t have a translator. He’s not doing well. None of them are. James seeks out the Inquisitor. She’s here, for once, not riding around the countryside doing whatever it is she does. She has an idea, she says. James doesn’t believe her.

He’s stuck here. They’re stuck here. For the rest of their lives.

James throws himself into peeling potatoes for the cook. He nicks himself a few times and doesn’t care. Just lets himself bleed into the pot. It’ll boil out. After dinner, after he’s stayed way too long scrubbing way too many pots, he gets a craving for something he hasn’t had in years. Churros. So he makes some. Or, best he can. He’s piping tubes of dough into a pot of spitting oil and he remembers that time his dad bought him churros. James must’ve been eleven at the time. They’d spent the day at the beach. All of them. Dad, Ma, Salomé and James. Done nothing but swim and sunbathe and eat ice cream. Ma and Salomé had gone home to cook dinner while James and Dad competed to see who could hold their breath the longest. James won. Dad had been so proud and shit, James’ chest puffed up so damn much at that. Churros was his prize. Perfect end to the perfect day. Didn’t get many of those.

He makes all these churros and then he makes a shit load of sauce and then he eats it all himself right there in the kitchen while trying not to cry. When he’s done, he’s made his decision.

Bull’s in the tavern. James makes a beeline, doing his best to look casual, like he’s here for a round of diamondback. Bull sees right through him though. James is almost relieved when Bull leans into him at the bar. The babble of the tavern’s behind them, and the bartender way down the other end.

“Give me ten minutes,” Bull says. “Come upstairs and knock. Don’t finish that.” Bull takes James’ beer away and gives it to Krem. James leaves, breath condensing in the outside air. Cold, for once. What the fuck is he gonna ask Bull to do? Just contact. Skin to skin. A chance to be vulnerable. Just to let go. Pretend he isn’t here.

He wants what Bull gave him last time, way back in the Milky Way, that reprieve from having to actively think, from having to make decisions other than a simple _yes_ or _no_. He craves that ache and bloom of pleasure throughout his whole body, the buildup of pressure like a fucking volcano, teasing, taunting, so fucking good, and then the, uh, the eruption. Yeah. That’s it.

He take the long way round to the room above the tavern, letting his stomach settle while carefully constructing exactly what he’ll say when he knocks. Then he’s standing outside the door. He knocks, script ready, and it all flies out the window when Bull opens the door. James looks up at him--up, shit, he’ll never get over that--and his voice catches in his throat. He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Can I just hang onto your horns?” He doesn’t care how desperate he sounds. His face burns hot and he knows he must be blushing so hard.

Bull smiles and steps back, holds an arm out to welcome James in. The weight on James’ shoulders feels lighter before the door’s even closed.

*

They fuck again the next day. And the next. They play it safe. Or, as safe as they can at least. What James wouldn’t give for all the condoms from back home ‘cause these sheep gut ones take a little getting used to. James always makes his way back to his shared room at a respectable hour. Can’t have the guys thinking something’s up. Bull cleans him up so he doesn’t stink, either. Leaving’s hard. He’d rather fall asleep snugged up around Bull than have to do the walk of shame back through the castle to an empty and cold bed. But he can’t, so he contents himself with the loose-boned, light-headed way Bull leaves him. They even slip in a couple of afternoon sessions. Amazing what a good fuck can do for the stress levels. Having a massive crush on the guy you’re fucking probably helps, too. That’s what’s hardest about leaving afterwards. The crush. Knowing that every time they do this, Bull cements himself a little more in James’ heart.

James isn’t Bull’s only partner. He knows that. Bull’s attention is so direct, so precise, so tuned to James’ pleasure that James can’t imagine him doing this exact shit with anyone else. One afternoon, when they’re sitting in bed restocking their energy reserves with meat pies, James asks if, you know, Bull’s like this with everyone.

“No. Everyone has different needs. What I give you wouldn’t be appropriate for say, the soldier who’s done nothing but patrol the ramparts all day, or the servant who’s been on her feet all night.”

That makes James pause. When Bull puts it like that, he sounds like he’s providing a service or something. James’ halfway to putting that into a question when another barges in. “You look at everyone you meet and figure out what they like, or need, or whatever?”

Bull shrugs. “Not at first, no. I figure out how I’d kill them, then I figure out how I’d fuck them. Uh, only if I don’t need to kill them. I don’t know what those necromancers get up to but _that’s_ not my thing.”

James laughs, spraying bits of pastry over the bed. “I was trained to do something similar. The killing part, not the fucking part. Wherever I go, whoever I meet. What are my exits? What are the threats? What are my weapons? Kinda psychotic when I say it out loud.”

“Nah, it’s expected for guys like us. We have to detach or we break. Can’t think about the enemy’s mother or father, their kids, or lovers. Can’t even think too hard about why they’re even the enemy sometimes. Just gotta…do our thing.”

James looks at Bull. He’s gone all soft and sad. It’s unnerving, showing vulnerability like that. Makes Bull just a man, like James. Fallible. Imperfect. James should know a thing or two about putting heroes on pedestals. “You ever let your team down? As a commander?”

Bull meets James’ eye and James can all but see the memories playing out. Bull blinks and the mist is gone. “Careful, James. Wouldn’t want to ruin the mood.”

James swallows hard and looks away. Right. Don’t stick fingers in open wounds. Got it. He brushes the crumbs off his chest. “I should go. Getting late and the guys--”

A thump at the door, a rattle, then it swings open and in walks Hasani and Barry. They freeze in the doorway but get pushed forward by Xiong, then Varis complains about the hold up until he, too freezes. They stare and James stares back. The door swings closed and they’re all here.

The room erupts. The crew all talking at once and James just sitting there with his face on fire while he tugs the sheet higher like some blushing virgin. Bull says nothing and when James glances at him, he’s grinning. The fucker.

James’ gotta do something so he whistles, piercing and everyone shuts up. “What the fuck are you all doing here?” he shouts.

They all talk at once, over each other.

“Looking for you--.”

“Couldn’t find you--.”

“Inquisitor has news--”

“Didn’t expect this--”

James whistles again. How’d they get in here?  How’d they even know he was here? Madre de Dios, this cannot be happening. Worse, Bull takes this moment to make his move. He swings his legs off the bed and stands up, butt naked--James can’t help but look but he snaps away pretty damn quick, only to see the crew staring as well--and strokes James’ shoulder.

“I’ll leave you be.”

“No, I’m not kicking you out of your own room. That lot can leave.” He nods to his crew.

Bull smiles, nice and easy, and gets his pants. “It’s okay, James. I’ll catch you later.”

James slumps and there’s a long awkward silence as Bull belts his pants and puts on his boots and brace and harness. James tugs the sheet Bull grins as he wanders past the crew. He closes the door behind him and the explosion that James expects doesn’t happen. Four sets of eyes stare at him instead. Disbelief, confusion, disappointment, and one sly grin.

James sighs. “Get it all out then,” he says.

“You’re fucking the alien!” Barry shouts. “I can't believe it!”

“Jealous,” Xiong says. She’s the one grinning. Shit bag.

Varis just stares openmouthed. Hasani shakes her head, arms folded.

“If you’re fucking one of the aliens, does that mean we can fuck them too?” Barry asks.

“They’re not aliens--” James starts.

“Who’d want to fuck you?” Xiong finishes. She looks back at James. “What’s he like?”

“Not answering that.”

“Does he tie you up?”

“I’m not answering that.”

Varis finally shuts his gaping fish mouth. “I’m shook,” he says. “Shook!”

“Ah, I see it. You’re the one who does the fucking.” Xiong raises her eyebrow.

“Shut up, Xiong,” James grounds out.

“I’m disappointed, sir.” Yeah, okay Hasani, lay it on. “I expected better from my CO.”

James bristles. “What? You think that being CO means I stop being human? What about you and Xiong, huh?”

Barry gapes at Hasani. “What? You two? Since when--”

“Not the place, Barry.” Hasani glares at Barry and then back at James. If looks could kill.

“I don’t have to explain shit to you guys, but since you don’t know how to _fucking knock_ \--Look. All this shit’s got me stressed, okay? I’m doing my best to keep us all together and keep us sane but in doing that, I didn’t look after myself. That’s something you two’ll learn when you get your own commands.” He nods at Hasani and Barry. “Bull picked up on it and offered a little, you know.”

“It’s certainly not little,” Varis says.

“Sounds legit,” Xiong says. “Seriously though, what’s he like?”

“ _Not_ answering that. Can you all fuck off now? Jesus Christ.”

They start shuffling away but Hasani hangs back. “Meet us in the war room. The Inquisitor and Solas have a plan.” She’s gonna be pissed off for a while but there’s not much James can do about that. He’s not gonna grovel and beg over this.

Finally the door closes and James flops back. He stares at the ceiling, sweat cooling, heart racing. His mind’s blank. Can’t even figure out where to start processing the sheer embarrassment of having his crew--his whole fucking crew--walk in on him. Good thing they hadn’t been half an hour earlier or Xiong would’ve gotten all her answers. Shit, he could really do with another round from Bull.

He sits up and sighs. ‘Spose he better go find out what the Inquisitor’s cooked up.

*

James is the last one to the war room. Hasani’s still glaring at him but she’s clearly excited about whatever this plan is. The Milky Way crew joins the Inquisitor, Solas, and Cassandra. The Inquisitor bounces on her toes, all bright eyed. Solas looks smug.

“So, what’s the plan?” James asks. He’s acutely aware of the sex stink on his clothes, but it’s not like everyone’s got perfect hygiene here anyway.

Solas looks to the Inquisitor, who looks back, grinning like a maniac. “We’ve found a way to weaken the veil!”

James nods like this means something to him.

“The veil is a metaphysical barrier between the fade and the waking world,” Hasani says. “People don’t physically pass through it.”

“Right, okay. So if it’s metaphysical, does it exist, or?”

“It both exists and doesn’t,” Solas says.

Well that’s cleared things up.

“Schrodinger's Veil,” Varis says.

“Point is, the rifts are tears in the veil. They’re effectively a direct path between our world and the fade,” the Inquisitor says. “I’ve been closing them with my anchor.” She waves her hand it glows that sickly green. “We think that maybe there are some that have torn _past_ the fade, straight into your world. That’s how Bull fell through into your world, initially. And the one you guys came through is the same.”

“Why did ours close up then? You were holding it open, right? Or disturbing it somehow?” James asks.

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to do, and I’ve done it successfully before. But after testing a few theories out on some other rifts, we think your one might’ve reacted to my anchor. Stronger veil, like membrane. Anchor just--zip--closed it up. But, after even more testing, we’ve figured out a way to weaken the veil and rip a rift into it! One that’ll tear right through to your world!”

“This is good!” James looks around his crew. They’re all looking hopeful. “What do you need us to do?”

“You just need to jump through,” the Inquisitor says.

The crew all look at each other. James gulps. Home. They can go home. “What’s the plan? We go out to where our rift was and you rip it open?”

“Exactly.”

He claps his hands. “Right, let’s fuckin’ do it.”

The crew murmur agreement with expressions ranging from relief and hope to apprehension. James’ feeling all of that, plus a niggle of regret that he can’t quite place.

“Tomorrow?” the Inquisitor asks.

James nods. He holds his hand out for the Inquisitor. She grabs his and they shake on it.

*

They’re all packed. Got their gear ready to be loaded onto the horses in the morning. Got their travelling gear ready. Talk’s been minimal all afternoon. James and Hasani stripped down their weapons and reassembled them more times than necessary. Barry went over their armor. They had a soak in the baths and James deflected even more questions about Bull. He’s never gonna live that down. At least they haven’t figured out that he and Bull fucked in the Milky Way, too. Now James stands above the gate house, leaning against a crenellation, looking over that bridge. The last rays of light have made the sky go all pink.

“Hey, James, got your message.” Bull leans against the stone, his massive arm brushing against James’. “Heard you’re going home.”

“Scuttlebutt works fast, huh. I was hoping to tell you first.”

“Sorry about earlier. For the record, I did lock the door. My investigations lead me to suspect Leliana. Hasani had a key and there’s only a handful of people who could’ve given it to her.”

James snorts. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Not your fault.”

“Have they been giving you shit for it?”

James barks a laugh. “You wouldn't’ fucking believe.” He shakes his head. He leans closer to Bull, soaking up his heat, arm to arm, skin to skin. “We’re going home. Can’t believe it. Won’t, until we’re through the other side. Sounds like a solid plan though.”

“You don’t sound all that happy about it.”

“Hell yeah I am! Been wanting to go home since we got here.”

“But?”

James looks up at Bull. Bull’s facing him, smiling with that know-it-all grin. James holds that stare for a few seconds then glances away. This is why he didn’t want to get involved. And if he hadn’t gone after Varis’ omni and almost plummeted to his death, then he probably wouldn't've gotten so fucking stressed out and he wouldn’t have run straight to Bull like a--shit. Doesn’t matter. Dumb fucking chain of reasoning anyway.

“Leaving fiesta would’ve been nice,” James says. He gives a half-hearted laugh and shakes his head.

Bull smiles. Doesn’t say anything. Just joins James in staring out at the view.

“I talked my way into travelling with you,” Bull says after a while. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Relief floods through James. He elbows Bull. “Can’t get rid of you that easily, huh?”

Bull grins. “Come on, let’s go get you drunk enough to cause a scene.” He holds his arm out for James and James joins him as they start towards the steps.

“You want me dancing on the tables, huh?” James says.

“Preferably with no shirt on.”

James laughs. Yeah, that sounds good.

*

Fucking hangover, man. Not even chewing on this elfroot shit is helping. Shit, that’s what James gets for drinking maraas lok, of whatever Bull called it. Some potent qunari liquor. Couldn’t blame the drink for him dancing on the tables though. That was all on James. He’s not called Party Vega for nothing. Still, his head pounds but he’s on his horse, and everyone else is on theirs, and they’re a couple hours out of Skyhold.

Goodbyes were harder than James was expecting. Hasani and Dorian hugged real tight and Dorian passed off a book to her. Damn well had tears in his eyes. Xiong and Krem punched each other hard enough to leave black eyes then cackled with laughter. James assumed that was a good thing. Dagna was there, too, waving goodbye. Cullen, Josephine, Leliana. A few of the others, not all. Then they were off, Inquisitor leading the way. Bull, Solas, Cassandra and the Milky Way crew following. James’d taken one last look at Skyhold over his shoulder as they rounded the corner and began their descent to the Hinterlands. Disney castle, definitely.

Bull’s ahead, his horns rocking up and down in time with his horse. Good to have him on the team. James feels a bit selfish about that, actually, after seeing the way the crew said goodbye to their friends.

They reach the tree line and stop at a camp.

“Lunch time!” the Inquisitor calls.

Thank fuck. James slithers from his horse and takes shit from his crew for still having a hangover. Yeah, yeah, whatever.

*

Two days riding and James has that sense of deja vu. Except he knows he’s been here before. The Inquisition camp is just the same as last time. Same soldiers, too. They’ve eaten dinner, cleaned up, and are just playing cards now. Waiting to go to bed. Tomorrow the Inquisitor makes a rift and James and co jump through it. There’s just one last thing James wants to do.

He stands up, checks his pocket for what he put in there earlier and catches Bull’s eye, hopes he conveys in that one glance that he wants Bull to wait a couple minutes before following James and then he wants Bull to--against a rock? Yeah, that’ll do.

James waits by a suitable rock. Can’t hear the camp. Got a nice view. Bull turns up ten minutes later and yeah, the rock works just fine.

*

The Inquisitor’s got her weird green hand outstretched, and she’s wrapped in magic coming from Solas. Cassandra and Bull stand by with their sword and axe at the ready. Demons might come out if she doesn’t punch through hard enough, the Inquisitor had said. James and his crew are all in their Alliance armor and uniforms, as many souvenirs packed into their pockets as they could manage, standing, bouncing on the balls of their feet. They’re ready.

The rift splits open, a tear right in the air in front of them, all green and spiky and wild. The air cracks and spits.

“Now!” she yells.

“Go go go,” James yells. Varis, Xiong, Barry, Hasani, all jump through. James takes his leap, heart in his mouth, and gets one last glance at Bull before he tumbles though. He lands, scraping his shoulder against metal before he rights himself and looks up.

The mess. The _Vespa’s_ tiny mess. His crew sit around, equally stunned. The rift sizzles above them then snaps shut.

Silence.

“We fucking made it!” Barry cries. “We’re home!”

Xiong and Hasani whoop and hug. Varis bursts into tears and laughs. James, he laughs, too, loud and uncontrolled. Home. He’s fucking home.

*

Reports, reports, reports. No end to them. Turns out the crew’s nine weeks in Thedas equated to three minutes Milky Way time. Three minutes of blackout that James has to account for somehow. He said all he could to Hackett over the QEC. Asked about the other rifts but Hackett keeps his lips zipped and puts them on a direct course to Alliance HQ. Vancouver itself. Been awhile since James’ been there. Still, it’ll be good to see Earth again.

He shoves his current report aside and wanders to the mess.

“Diamondback?” he yells.

Varis and Barry wander in from the cockpit. Hasani from her quarters and Xiong from engineering. James shuffles the cards they’d brought back with them and they all have a spirited argument about the rules as James deals.

He’s got a nice pile of credits going when Hasani asks how the reports are going. James throws her a dirty look.

“By the way, sir, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re missing the N7 badge off your armor. I noticed that last morning in Thedas.” She’s smirking. James feigns ignorance but she’s not done. “Then I saw it. You know where?”

“Go on, then, say it.”

“On Bull’s harness. How do you suppose it got there, hmm?”

James endures the whistles and hollering, the smacks on his back with good grace. He’s still not gonna give Xiong any details though.

*

James’ in Shanghai having a drunk chicken--which is excellent, by the way--with Xiong when his omni pings. Urgent top-secret message from Hackett. Fourteen hours ago Alliance noted a surge of some kind of energy through the galaxy, concentrated on the spots where the rifts were. Were. They’re gone now. James knows what that means. Breach closed. A pang of sadness hits him but it's followed by happiness. Mission complete. Just a pity he’ll never get clearance for this to go into his memoirs.


End file.
